Reconstructing the primary energy of cosmic rays from the S(500) observable recorded by the KASCADE-Grande detector

The KASCADE-Grande detector hosted by the KIT Campus North Karlsruhe, Germany, is designed to record air showers in the 1016-1018 eV energy range. The primary energy spectrum of cosmic rays as reconstructed by KASCADE-Grande based on the Nμ-Nch correlation has been recently published. We present results of an alternative technique that is applied to the KASCADE-Grande data in order to reconstruct the primary energy. In the described method we use the charged particle density at 500 m from the shower axis, S(500) as a primary energy estimator practically independent from the primary mass. We account for the attenuation of S(500) in the atmosphere by applying the constant intensity cut method. With the help of a simulation-derived calibration curve we convert the recorded S(500) to energy. The final result is discussed in comparison with the recent results published by KASCADE-Grande.