Simulation of Radiation Energy Release in Air Showers

A simulation study of the energy released by extensive air showers in the form of MHz radiation is performed using the CoREAS simulation code. We develop an efficient method to extract this radiation energy from air-shower simulations. We determine the longitudinal profile of the radiation energy release and compare it to the longitudinal profile of the energy deposit by the electromagnetic component of the air shower. We find that the radiation energy corrected for the geometric dependence of the geomagnetic emission scales quadratically with the energy in the electromagnetic component of the air shower with a second-order dependence on the atmospheric density at the position of the maximum shower development $X_\mathrm{max}$. In a measurement where $X_\mathrm{max}$ is not accessible, this second order dependence can be approximated using the zenith angle of the incoming direction of the air shower with only a minor loss in accuracy. Our method results in an intrinsic uncertainty of 4% in the determination of the energy in the electromagnetic air-shower component, which is well below current experimental uncertainties.
Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI