Arqueros Martínez, FernandoBlanco Ramos, FranciscoGarcía Pinto, DiegoMinaya Flores, Ignacio AndrésOrtiz Ramis, MontserratRosado Vélez, JaimeVázquez Peñas, José Ramón2023-06-192023-06-192013-021475-751610.1088/1475-7516/2013/02/026https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/34820© 2013 Iop Publishing Ltd. Autoria conjunta : Pierre Auger collaboration. Artículo firmado por mas de 400 autores We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Comision Nacional de Energia Atoomica, Fundacion Antorchas, Gobierno De La Provincia de Mendoza, Municipalidad de Malargue, NDM Holdings and Valle Las Lenas, in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access, Argentina; the Australian Research Council; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfico e Tecnologico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (FINEP), Fundacao de Amparoa Pesquisa do Estado de Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), Fundacao de Amparoa Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP), Ministerio de Ciencia e Tecnologia (MCT), Brazil; AVCR AV0Z10100502 and AV0Z10100522, GAAV KJB100100904, MSMT-CR LA08016, LG11044, MEB111003, MSM0021620859, LA08015, TACR TA01010517 and GA U.K. 119810, Czech Republic; Centre de Calcul IN2P3/CNRS, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Conseil Regional Ile-de-France, Departement Physique Nucleaire et Corpusculaire (PNC-IN2P3/CNRS), Departement Sciences de l'Univers (SDU-INSU/CNRS), France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Finanzministerium Baden-Wurttemberg, Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren (HGF), Ministerium fur Wissenschaft und Forschung, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Ministerium fur Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR), Italy; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologa (CONACYT), Mexico; Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), Netherlands; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Grant Nos. N N202 200239 and N N202 207238, Poland; Portuguese national funds and FEDER funds within COMPETE - Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade through Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, Portugal; Romanian Authority for Scientific Research ANCS, CNDI-UEFISCDI partnership projects nr. 20/2012 and nr. 194/2012, project nr. 1/ASPERA2/2012 ERA-NET and PN-II-RU-PD-2011-3-0145-17, Romania; Ministry for Higher Education, Science, and Technology, Slovenian Research Agency, Slovenia; Comunidad de Madrid, FEDER funds, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and Consolider-Ingenio 2010 (CPAN), Xunta de Galicia, Spain; The Leverhulme Foundation, Science and Technology Facilities Council, United Kingdom; Department of Energy, Contract Nos. DE-AC02-07CH11359, DE-FR02-04ER41300, DE-FG02-99ER41107, National Science Foundation, Grant No. 0450696, The Grainger Foundation U.S.A.; NAFOS-TED, Vietnam; Marie Curie-IRSES/EPLANET, European Particle Physics Latin American Network, European Union 7th Framework Program, Grant No. PIRSES-2009-GA-246806; and UNESCO.To interpret the mean depth of cosmic ray air shower maximum and its dispersion, we parametrize those two observables as functions of the first two moments of the ln A distribution. We examine the goodness of this simple method through simulations of test mass distributions. The application of the parameterization to Pierre Auger Observatory data allows one to study the energy dependence of the mean ln A and of its variance under the assumption of selected hadronic interaction models. We discuss possible implications of these dependences in term of interaction models and astrophysical cosmic ray sources.engjournal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2013/02/026http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.6637http://iopscience.iop.org/open access539.1Energy cosmic-raysSimulationParticlesModelFísica nuclear2207 Física Atómica y Nuclear