The amplitude and phase of the cosmic-ray anisotropy are well established experimentally between 10 11 eV and 10 14 eV. The study of their evolution in the energy region 10 14-10 16 eV can provide a significant tool for the understanding of the steepening ("knee") of the primary spectrum. In this Letter, we extend the EAS-TOP measurement performed at E 0 ≈ 10 14 eV to higher energies by using the full data set (eight years of data taking). Results derived at about 10 14 and 4 × 10 14 eV are compared and discussed. Hints of increasing amplitude and change of phase above 10 14 eV are reported. The significance of the observation for the understanding of cosmic-ray propagation is discussed.

The measurement of large scale anisotropies in cosmic ray arrival directions at energies above 10 13 eV is performed through the detection of Extensive Air Showers produced by cosmic ray interactions in the atmosphere. The observed anisotropies are small, so accurate measurements require small statistical uncertainties, i.e. large datasets. These can be obtained by employing ground detector arrays with large extensions (from 10 4 to 10 9 m 2 ) and long operation time (up to 20 years). The control of such arrays is challenging and spurious variations in the counting rate due to instrumental effects (e.g. data taking interruptions or changes in the acceptance) and atmospheric effects (e.g. air temperature and pressure effects on EAS development) are usually present. These modulations must be corrected very precisely before performing standard anisotropy analyses, i.e. harmonic analysis of the counting rate versus local sidereal time. In this paper we discuss an alternative method to measure large scale anisotropies, the "East-West method", originally proposed by Nagashima in 1989. It is a differential method, as it is based on the analysis of the difference of the counting rates in the East and West directions. Besides explaining the principle, we present here its mathematical derivation, showing that the method is largely independent of experimental effects, that is, it does not require corrections for acceptance and/or for atmospheric effects. We explain the use of the method to derive the amplitude and phase of the anisotropy and we demonstrate its power under different conditions of detector operation.

The results of Monte-Carlo simulations of Extensive Air Shower are presented to show the difference of hadronic component content at various altitudes with the aim to choose an optimal altitude for the PRISMA-like experiment. CORSIKA program for EAS simulations with QGSJET and GHEISHA models was used to calculate the number of hadrons reaching the observational level inside a ring of 50 m radius around the EAS axis. Then the number of neutrons produced by the hadronic component was calculated using an empirical relationship between the two components. We have tested the results with the ProtoPRISMA array at sea level, and recorded neutrons are close to the simulation results.

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The idea of a novel type detector array is the following: delayed thermal neutrons generated by hadronic component of Extensive Air Showers (EAS) can be detected over the whole array area using special electron-neutron detectors (en-detectors). The array PRISMA-32 consists of 32 en-detectors, deployed over the area of 450 m 2 . En-detectors are able to detect two main EAS components: electromagnetic one in a case of a synchronous passage of several charged particles, and hadronic component through thermal neutron captures. Detectors are based on a specialized inorganic scintillator, being a granulated alloy of ZnS(Ag) with LiF, enriched up to 90% with 6 Li isotope. The array is triggered by the electromagnetic component of EAS, and provides information about the energy deposit (mostly electrons) and delayed neutrons accompanying the EAS within 20 ms after the trigger. During 2 years of operation more than 10 5 events were recorded. Examples of EAS detection are presented.