CORRELATED FEATURES OF ARRIVAL TIME AND ANGLE-OF-INCIDENCE DISTRIBUTIONS OF EAS MUONS

Various features and correlations of the arrival time and angle-of-inc idence distributions of muons of extensive air showers (EAS) are studi ed by analyses based on Monte-Carlo simulations of the EAS development by using the air shower simulation code CORSIKA. Trends and dependenc ies of the temporal dispersion of the EAS muon component on shower siz e and distance from the shower core are displayed by the distribution of the arrival time and angle of incidence of the first muon, of the m ean and median of the single shower distribution. Special attention is called to multi-correlations in observations at different radial dist ances from the shower core. These 'radial' correlations provide additi onal information for the discrimination of different EAS primaries, wh ile the correlation of muon arrival time and angle-of-incidence is sho wn to improve the mass separation only insignificantly. This feature d oes not basically change, when arrival times and angles of incidence a re displayed by transformed quantities like 'muon production heights'. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.