Related papers: Particle Physics at Ultrahigh Energies
This is an auspicious moment in experimental particle physics -there are large data samples at the Tevatron and a new energy regime being explored at the Large Hadron Collider with ever larger data samples. The coincidence of these two…
The Pierre Auger Collaboration has reported an excess in the number of muons of a few tens of percent over expectations computed using extrapolation of hadronic interaction models tuned to accommodate LHC data. Very recently, we proposed an…
The standard model of particle physics is an extremely successful theory of fundamental interactions, but it has many known limitations. It is therefore widely believed to be an effective field theory that describes interactions near the…
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…
Extensive air showers are the result of billions of particle reactions initiated by single cosmic rays at ultra-high energy. Their characteristics are sensitive both to the mass of the primary cosmic ray and to the fine details of hadronic…
Over the last decade, observations have shown that the mean mass of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) increases progressively toward the highest energies. However, the precise composition is still unknown, and several theoretical…
The determination of the primary energy and mass of ultra-high-energy cosmic-rays (UHECR) generating extensive air-showers in the Earth's atmosphere, relies on the detailed modeling of hadronic multiparticle production at center-of-mass…
We discuss the physics of large impact parameter interactions at the LHC: ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs). The dominant processes in UPCs are photon-nucleon (nucleus) interactions. The current LHC detector configurations can explore small…
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…
The Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina provides the largest data sample of the cosmic ray events with energy above 10$^{18}$ eV. These high energy events can be used to test our understanding of the hadronic interactions at energies…
The development of an extensive air shower depends not only on the nature of the primary ultra-high-energy cosmic ray but also on the properties of the hadronic interactions. For energies above those achievable in human-made accelerators,…
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 scientific achievements of the Pierre Auger Collaboration cover diverse and complementary fields of research. The search for the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) is based on the measurement of the energy spectrum and…
We describe a method to analyse inclined air showers produced by ultra high energy cosmic rays using an analytical description of the muon densities. We report the results obtained using data from inclined events…
Measurements of proton and nuclear collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at nucleon-nucleon c.m. energies up to $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 13 TeV, have improved our understanding of hadronic interactions at the highest energies reached in…
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR), of energy >10 EeV, arrive at the Earth regularly, but their sources, acceleration mechanisms, details of propagation through the universe, and particle composition remain mysteries. In addition, their…
Since recent RHIC data and the development of new theories for small x physics, a new interest appeared for forward physics. At LHC, a correct description of multiple parton interactions will be crucial to understand all the results. On the…
Candidate astrophysical acceleration sites capable of producing the highest energy cosmic rays (E > 10^{19.5} eV) appear to be at far greater distances than is compatible with their being known particles. The properties of a new particle…
Moving highly-charged ions carry strong electromagnetic fields that act as a field of photons. In collisions at large impact parameters, hadronic interactions are not possible, and the ions interact through photon-ion and photon-photon…
Various phenomena of physics beyond that of the Standard Model could occur at high scale. Ultra-high energy cosmic rays are the only particles available to explore scales above a few dozens of TeV. Although these explorations are much more…