Correlated features of arrival time and angle-of-incidence distributions of EAS muons

Various features and correlations of the arrival time and angle-of-incidence distributions of muons of extensive air showers (EAS) are studied by analyses based on Monte-Carlo simulations of the EAS development by using the air shower simulation code CORSIKA. Trends and dependencies of the temporal dispersion of the EAS muon component on shower size 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 mean and median of the single shower distribution. Special attention is called to multi-correlations in observations at different radial distances from the shower core. These 'radial' correlations provide additional information for the discrimination of different EAS primaries, while the correlation of muon arrival time and angle-of-incidence is shown to improve the mass separation only insignificantly. This feature does not basically change, when arrival times and angles of incidence are displayed by transformed quantities like 'muon production heights'. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.