Strong colour fields and cosmic ray showers at ultra-high energies
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2008-05-01 v1
Abstract
We argue that the increase of the ratio baryon/meson due to the presence of strong colour fields and percolation in ultra-high energy hadronic collisions, helps to explain some of the global features of ultra-high energy cosmic ray cascades at E>10^18 eV and, in particular the observed excess in the number of muons with respect to current models of hadronic interactions. A reasonable agreement with the small value and slope of the average depth of shower maximum Xmax vs shower energy -- as seen in data collected at the Pierre Auger Observatory -- can be obtained with a fast increase of the p-Air production cross-section compatible with the Froissart bound.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0804.4751,
title = {Strong colour fields and cosmic ray showers at ultra-high energies},
author = {J. Alvarez-Muñiz and J. Dias de Deus and C. Pajares},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.4751},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
12 pages, 3 Figs