Related papers: Hadronic physics with the Pierre Auger Observatory
The Pierre Auger Cosmic-Ray Observatory uses the earth's atmosphere as a calorimeter to measure extensive air-showers created by particles of astrophysical origin. Some of these particles carry joules of energy. At these extreme energies,…
The energy spectrum of muons at ground level in air showers are studied and a new observable is proposed to constrain hadronic interaction models used in air shower simulations. An asymmetric Gaussian function is proposed to describe the…
Measurements of the products of UHECR interactions with the Earth's atmosphere, as obtained in Extended Air Shower experiments, offer important information concerning hadronic interactions, which for some aspects overlaps and for many…
The goal of the Pierre Auger Observatory is to determine the still unknown nature and origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The study of these elusive particles probes astrophysical sites of particle acceleration as well as fundamental…
Indications of a discrepancy between simulations and data on the number of muons in cosmic ray (CR) showers exist over a large span of energies. We focus in particular on the excess of multi-muon bundles observed by the DELPHI detector at…
We investigate the proposal that primary cosmic rays of energy above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff are exotic massive strongly interacting particles (uhecrons). We study the properties of air showers produced by uhecrons and find that…
One of the possible consequences of the existence of extra degrees of freedom beyond the electroweak scale is the increase of neutrino-nucleon cross sections ($\sigma_{\nu N}$) beyond Standard Model predictions. At ultra-high energies this…
Using CORSIKA for simulating extensive air showers, we study the relation between the shower characteristics and features of hadronic multiparticle production at low energies. We report about investigations of typical energies and phase…
A quantitative analysis of model uncertainties for calculations of the maximum depth of proton-initiated extensive air showers (EAS) has been performed. Staying within the standard physics picture and using the conventional approach to the…
A key step towards the understanding of the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays is their mass composition. Primary photons and neutrinos produce markedly different showers from nuclei, while showers of different nuclear species are not…
We discuss the electromagnetic collisions of high energy protons, pions and kaons with atmospheric nuclei. In particular, we use the equivalent photon approximation to estimate (i) the diffractive collisions where the projectile scatters…
The air fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory is designed to perform calorimetric measurements of extensive air showers created by cosmic rays of above 10^18 eV. To correct these measurements for the effects introduced by…
We explore the feasibility of estimating primary cosmic ray composition at ultra high energies from the sum of muon, electron and photon densities and the depth of maximum of extensive air showers detected by the Auger Observatory. From the…
The interpretation of extensive air shower (EAS) measurements is strongly dependent on the hadronic interaction models used for simulating reference showers. We study the importance of low-energy hadronic interactions in simulated air…
The field of ultra-high energy cosmic rays made a lot of progresses last years with large area experiments such as the Pierre Auger Observatory, HiRes and the Telescope Array. A suppression of the cosmic ray flux at energies above…
Hadronic cross sections at ultra-high energy have a significant impact on the development of extensive air shower cascades. Therefore the interpretation of air shower data depends critically on hadronic interaction models that extrapolate…
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest operating detection system for the observation of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The detector allows detailed measurements of their energy spectrum, mass composition and arrival…
We study the role new gauge interactions in extensions of the standard model play in air showers initiated by ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Hadron-hadron events remain dominated by quantum chromodynamics, while projectiles and/or targets…
One of the uncertainties in interpretation of ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) data comes from the hadronic interaction models used for air shower Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The number of muons observed at the ground from…
The muonic and electromagnetic components of air showers are sensitive to the mass of the primary cosmic particle. The sizes of the components can be measured with particle detectors on ground, and the electromagnetic component in addition…