Related papers: Cosmic ray air showers from sphalerons
A method is developed to search for air showers initiated by photons using data recorded by the surface detector of the Auger Observatory. The approach is based on observables sensitive to the longitudinal shower development, the signal…
NA61/SHINE is a fixed target experiment designed to study hadron-proton, hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus interactions at the CERN Super-Proton-Synchrotron. In this paper we summarize the results from pion-carbon collisions recorded at…
A Monte Carlo generator of high energy cosmic ray interactions, relying on a very basic and transparent theoretical formalism, in the framework of the Reggeon Field Theory, is presented. The main motivation for our work is to provide a new…
The ratio of the number of muons with a threshold of 1 GeV and charged particles at a distance of 600 m from the axis is analyzed. Air showers with energies above 5 EeV and zenith angles with less than 60 degrees are considered. Comparison…
The influence of high and low energy hadronic models on lateral distribution functions of cosmic ray air showers for AUGER energies is explored. A large variety of presently used high and low energy hadron interaction models are analysed…
Identification of primary cosmic rays on an event-by-event basis is a much-desired capability of cosmic-ray observatories. Several cosmic-ray air-shower experiments use so-called photon tags for gamma hadron primary particle discrimination.…
We show that the recent measurements of the total photoproduction cross section at HERA energies [1] are in agreement with our earlier prediction based on high-energy hadronic structure of the photon in the QCD minijet-type model [2]. We…
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…
Data from multiple experiments suggest that the current interaction models used in Monte Carlo simulations do not correctly reproduce the hadronic interactions in air showers produced by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR). We have…
The Pierre Auger Observatory is a hybrid detector for cosmic rays with E > 1EeV. From the gathered data we estimated the proton-proton cross-section at sqrt(s) = 55 TeV and tested other features of the hadronic interaction models, which use…
We describe the method devised to reconstruct inclined cosmic-ray air showers with zenith angles greater than $60^\circ$ detected with the surface array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The measured signals at the ground level are fitted to…
We propose a scenario in which a simple power-like primary spectrum for protons with sources at cosmological distances leads to a quantitative description of all the details of the observed cosmic ray spectrum for energies from 10^{17} eV…
The total photoproduction cross section at ultra-high energies is obtained using a model based on QCD minijets and soft-gluon resummation and the ansatz that infrared gluons limit the rise of total cross sections. This cross section is…
Distinguishing $\gamma$-ray and hadron initiated extensive air showers (EAS) based on lateral distribution of electrons has been studied by detailed Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The possibility of using the local age parameter (LAP) of EAS…
Radio antennas have become a standard tool for the detection of cosmic-ray air showers in the energy range above $10^{16}\,$eV. The radio signal of these air showers is generated mostly due to the deflection of electrons and positrons in…
The Pierre Auger Observatory, the world's largest observatory of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR), offers a unique insight into the properties of hadronic interactions occurring in air showers at energies well above those reached at…
Studies of the nature of cosmic ray particles at the highest energies are based on the measurement of extensive air showers. Most cosmic ray properties can therefore only be obtained from the interpretation of air shower data and are thus…
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 Pierre Auger Observatory, recently completed, has been operational since 2004. As a hybrid experiment, it allows for a wide range of measurements of UHECR-induced extensive air showers (EAS), including measurements of the EAS particle…
The AIRES (AIR-shower Extended Simulations) system is a set of programs and subroutines to realistically simulate particle showers produced after the incidence of high energy cosmic rays on the Earth's atmosphere, and to manage all the…