Reconstructing Air-Shower Observables using a Universality-Based Model

Air-Shower universality describes the regularity in the longitudinal, lateral, and energy distributions of electromagnetic shower particles, as motivated by solutions of the cascade equations. To reconstruct air-shower observables from ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, we employ a universality-based model of shower development that incorporates hadronic particle components. Depending on the input parameters, the model can be used, for example, to estimate the depth of the shower maximum or the number of muons on event level. In this context, we present the expected performance for the reconstruction using air-shower simulations and data from the Pierre Auger Observatory.