Related papers: Proton-Air Cross Section and Extensive Air Showers
At high energy, cosmic rays can only be studied by measuring the extensive air showers they produce in the atmosphere of the Earth. Although the main features of air showers can be understood within a simple model of successive…
Extensive air showers initiated by ultra-high energy cosmic rays are sensitive to the details of hadronic interactions models, so we present the main results obtained using the data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The depth at which the…
The physics content of the QGSJET-III Monte Carlo model of high energy hadronic interactions is briefly described. The predictions of the model for extensive air shower characteristics are presented in comparison to the corresponding…
Very high energy cosmic rays are typically studied by measuring extensive air showers formed by secondary particles produced in collisions with air nuclei. The indirect character of the measurement makes the physics interpretation of cosmic…
In this paper, we will discuss the prospects of deducing the proton-air cross section from fluorescence telescope measurements of extensive air showers. As it is not possible to observe the point of first interaction $X_{\rm 1}$ directly,…
Cross sections for proton inelastic collision with different nuclei are described within the Glauber and multiple scattering approximations. A significant difference between approximate `Glauber' formula and exact calculations with a…
We propose a method to extract high-energy hadronic interaction properties from the distributions of two of the main observables of proton extensive air showers: the depth of maximum shower development, $X_\mathrm{max}$, and the number of…
The understanding of the basic properties of the ultra - high energy extensive air showers is strongly dependent on the description of the hadronic interactions in a energy range beyond that probed by the LHC. One of the uncertainties…
We demonstrate that a substantial part of the present uncertainties in model predictions for the average maximum depth of cosmic ray-induced extensive air showers is related to very high energy pion-air collisions. Our analysis shows that…
In models based on large extra dimensions where massive spin 2 exchange can dominate at high energies, the neutrino-proton cross section can rise to typical hadronic values at energies above 10^20 eV. The neutrino then becomes a candidate…
The development of extensive air showers at extreme energies is studied using a simulation model much simpler and cruder, but also more transparent and flexible, than existing sophisticated codes. Evidence for its satisfactory performance…
We demonstrate that the shower-to-shower fluctuations of the muon content of extensive air showers correlate with the fluctuations of a variable of the first interaction of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays, which is computed from the fraction…
The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 1PeV have to be deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers which they initiate. In this review, a summary of the phenomenology of these giant air showers is…
We discuss that hadron-induced atmospheric air showers from ultra-high energy cosmic rays are sensitive to QCD interactions at very small momentum fractions x where nonlinear effects should become important. The leading partons from the…
Studies of the influence of different hadronic models on extensive air showers at ultra-high energies are presented. The hadronic models considered are those implemented in the well-known QGSJET and SIBYLL event generators. The different…
The Heitler-Matthews model for hadronic air showers will be extended to all the generations of electromagnetic subshowers in the hadronic cascade. The analysis is outlined in detail for showers initiated by primary protons. For showers…
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…
The depth of maximum for extensive air showers measured by Fly's Eye and Yakutsk experiments is analysed. The analysis depends on the hadronic interaction model that determine cascade development. The novel feature found in the cascading…
Hadronic interaction models at cosmic ray (CR) energies are inherently uncertain due to the lack of a fundamental theoretical description of soft hadronic and nuclear interactions and the large extrapolation required from collider energies…
We introduce a simple branching model for the development of hadronic showers in the Earth's atmosphere. Based on this model, we show how the size of the pionic component followed by muons can be estimated. Several aspects of the subsequent…