Thinning of High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Air-Showers

Maximum number of particles in a 10? eV proton air-shower exceeds 10? which makes simulation of a complete shower impossible. Thus, tracking of a representative sample of particles has to be introduced. The thinning method incorporated in present simulation programs selects particles regarding only their energy and is mostly effective in the region of the shower core. However, surface detectors sample particle densities far from the shower core (?m). We developed a thinning method based on the particle energies and weights, their distances from the core, and their incident angles. With the new method the same quality as in the standard thinning is obtained in the working area of the detector in approximately 20 times shorter CPU time.