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PolskiCosmic Ray Air Showers (2D)
2D side-view Heitler cascade lab: adjust a primary cosmic ray's energy, particle type and zenith angle and watch shower maximum, particle count and the muon component update live.
This 2D companion drives the same Heitler cascade formulas as the 3D version through a flat side-view of the atmosphere column: a primary particle enters at the top, branches generation by generation as it descends, and the same Xmax, particle-count and ground-footprint numbers you'd read off the 3D scene are plotted directly against altitude here, so the elongation-rate and superposition effects of energy, particle type and zenith angle are easy to read at a glance.
2D side-view Heitler cascade lab: adjust a primary cosmic ray's energy, particle type and zenith angle and watch shower maximum, particle count and the muon component update live.
2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install
What is a cosmic ray air shower?
When a high-energy cosmic ray — a proton, a heavier nucleus, or a gamma ray — hits the top of the atmosphere, it collides with an air nucleus and shatters into a cascade of secondary particles that multiplies generation by generation as it falls toward the ground.
What is shower maximum (Xmax)?
Xmax is the atmospheric depth (converted to altitude here) where the number of particles in the cascade peaks. Higher primary energy needs more generations to reach the critical energy where the cascade dies out, so Xmax sits deeper, closer to the ground.
Why does particle type change the shower shape?
A proton starts a single cascade, while a heavier nucleus like iron behaves like several independent nucleons each carrying a fraction of the energy — this superposition effect makes iron showers develop higher in the atmosphere, with a shallower Xmax and less fluctuation, than proton showers of the same total energy.