Constraints on the ultrahigh-energy photon flux using inclined showers from the Haverah Park array -: art. no. 063007

We describe a method to analyze inclined air showers produced by ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays using an analytical description of the muon densities. We report the results obtained using data from inclined events (60degrees < θ < 80degrees) recorded by the Haverah Park shower detector for energies above 10(19) eV. Using mass independent knowledge of the UHECR spectrum obtained from vertical air shower measurements and comparing the expected horizontal shower rate to the reported measurements we show that above 10(19) eV less than 48% of the primary cosmic rays can be photons at the 95% confidence level and above 4 X 10(19) eV less than 50% of the cosmic rays can be photonic at the same confidence level. These limits place important constraints on some models of the origin of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays.