Cao Z.Aharonian F.An Q.AxikeguBai L.X.Bai Y.X.Bao Y.W.Bastieri D.Bi X.J.Bi Y.J.Cai J.T.Cao Q.Cao W.Y.Cao Z.Chang J.Chang J.F.Chen E.S.Chen L.Chen L.Chen L.Chen M.J.Chen M.L.Chen Q.H.Chen S.H.Chen S.Z.Chen T.L.Chen Y.Cheng H.L.Cheng N.Cheng Y.D.Cui S.W.Cui X.H.Cui Y.D.Dai B.Z.Dai H.L.Dai Z.G.Danzengluobudella Volpe D.Dong X.Q.Duan K.K.Fan J.H.Fan Y.Z.Fang J.Fang K.Feng C.F.Feng L.Feng S.H.Feng X.T.Feng Y.L.Gao B.Gao C.D.Gao L.Q.Gao Q.Gao W.Gao W.K.Ge M.M.Geng L.S.Gong G.H.Gou Q.B.Gu M.H.Guo F.L.Guo X.L.Guo Y.Q.Guo Y.Y.Han Y.A.He H.H.He H.N.He J.Y.He X.B.He Y.Heller M.Hor Y.K.Hou B.W.Hou C.Hou X.Hu H.B.Hu Q.Hu S.C.Huang D.H.Huang T.Q.Huang W.J.Huang X.T.Huang X.Y.Huang Y.Huang Z.C.Ji X.L.Jia H.Y.Jia K.Jiang K.Jiang X.W.Jiang Z.J.Jin M.Kang M.M.Ke T.Kuleshov D.Kurinov K.Li B.B.Li C.Li C.Li D.Mahidol University2023-12-152023-12-152024-02-01Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment Vol.1059 (2024)01689002https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/91490The measurement of shower muons on an event-by-event basis offers a potent tool for conducting ground-based experiments on gamma rays and cosmic rays due to its sensitivity to primary mass and interaction models. In recent years, underground water Cherenkov detectors as large-area muon counters provide the most powerful way of rejecting cosmic ray background when searching for TeV–PeV gamma rays and cosmic ray electrons, an unprecedented rejection power of 104–105 is achieved. Unburied water Cherenkov detectors are widely used in ground-based gamma astronomy experiments, e.g, Milagro, HAWC, LHAASO-WCDA, etc. However, due to the presence of electromagnetic components, their deployment as event-by-event muon counters has encountered considerable challenges. All the experiments mentioned above reconstruct lateral-distribution-function related parameters to tell a gamma from hadrons. In this work, we first developed a method to utilize the WCDA, to specify muon content in each shower with LHAASO KM2A-WCDA synergy and help LHAASO to gain approximately a 37,650-meter-square effective area as a muon counter.Physics and AstronomyArticleSCOPUS10.1016/j.nima.2023.1689582-s2.0-85179007570