Hadronic components of EAS by rigorous saddle point method in the energy range between 10(5) and 10(8) GeV

The study of hadronic components in the high energy range between 10 to the 5 and 10 to the 8 Gev exhibits by far the strongest mass sensitivity since the primary energy spectrum as discussed by Linsley and measured by many air shower experimental groups indicates a change of slope from -1.7 to 2.0 in this energy range. This change of slope may be due to several reasons such as a genuine spectral feature of astrophysical origin, a confinement effect of galactic component or a rather rapid change of mass, a problem which we have attempted to study here in detail.