Related papers: Accelerator Data for Cosmic Ray Physics
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…
Contemporary models of hadronic interactions are reviewed. Basic phenomenological approaches are compared, with an emphasizes on the predicted air shower characteristics. Special attention is payed to the remaining discrepancies between…
The identification of gamma-ray induced air showers with Cherenkov telescopes suffers from contamination with a specific class of cosmic ray induced air showers. The predictions for this background show strong discrepancies between the…
Cosmic ray data may allow the determination of the proton-air cross section at ultra-high energy. For example, the distribution of the first interaction point in air showers reflects the particle production cross section. As it is not…
In this report we review the important progress made in recent years towards understanding the experimental data on ultra-high-energy ($E \gtrsim 10^9$ GeV) cosmic rays. We begin with a general survey of the available data, including a…
This is a written version of a series of lectures aimed at graduate students in astrophysics/particle theory/particle experiment. In the first part, we explain the important progress made in recent years towards understanding the…
The description of high-energy hadronic interactions plays an important role in the (astrophysical) interpretation of air shower data. The parameter space important for the development of air showers (energy and kinematical range) extends…
Research in cosmic rays is now nearly a century old, but most of the fundamental questions in this field remain unanswered, on the other hand the perspectives of future studies in the next decade are very bright. New detectors will provide…
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…
There are both theoretical and experimental uncertainties in using data from cosmic-ray air showers to estimate hadronic cross sections above accelerator energies. We outline these problems and compare the physics used to extract…
In this chapter I give an overview of shock acceleration, including a discussion of the maximum energies possible and the shape of the spectrum near cut-off, interactions of high energy cosmic rays with, and propagation through, the…
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…
Observations of cosmic rays have been improving at all energies, with higher statistics and reduced systematics. Fundamental questions remain regarding the origins of cosmic rays both within the Galaxy and in extragalactic sources, and new…
The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 10**6 GeV have to be deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers which they initiate. In this review we summarize the phenomenology of these giant air…
The study of hadronic showers, which are produced by cosmic rays penetrating the Earth's atmosphere, is essential for shedding light on the origins and characteristics of high-energy particles originating from space and reaching our planet.…
The status of present theoretical description of very high energy hadronic interactions is reviewed. The impact of new results of accelerator and cosmic ray experiments on hadronic interaction model constructions is discussed in detail.…
We shortly discuss several astrophysical scenarios leading to cosmic ray acceleration up to extremely high energies reaching the scale of 10^{20} eV. The processes suggested in the literature include acceleration at relativistic jet…
I review here some of the physics we are learning and expect to learn in the near future through the observation of cosmic rays. The study of cosmic rays involves a combination of data from accelerators, ground arrays, atmospheric…
Most hadronic event generators which can be used for simulating hadronic and nuclear collisions up to the highest energies are quite similar in their construction and in the underlying theoretical concepts. At energies, where data from…
The status of some popular models to simulate hadronic and nuclear interactions at Cosmic Ray energies is reviewed. The models predict the rise of all the hadronic and nuclear cross sections with energy and a smooth (logarithmic) rise of…