Related papers: Modified Hadronic Interactions and the future of U…
The Pierre Auger Observatory has collected data for more than 15 years, accumulating the world's largest exposure to ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The energy spectrum of the UHECRs has been measured up to $10^{20.2}$ eV, and their…
Indications of a discrepancy between simulations and data on the number of muons in cosmic ray showers exist over a large span of energies. We focus on the excess of multi-muon bundles observed by the DELPHI detector at LEP and on 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 analysis of high-energy air shower data allows one to study the proton-air cross section at energies beyond the reach of fixed target and collider experiments. The mean depth of the first interaction point and its fluctuations are a…
Model calculations are performed of extensive air shower (EAS) component energies using a variety of hadronic interaction parameters. A conversion factor from electromagnetic component energy to the energy of ultra-high energy cosmic rays…
The energy spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) provides essential information on the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. Beyond EeV energies, the Telescope Array and Pierre Auger Observatory have the largest exposures…
Inelastic pp collisions are dominated by soft (low momentum transfer) physics where perturbative QCD cannot be fully applied. A deep understanding of both soft and semi-hard processes is crucial for predictions of minimum bias and…
A comparative study of commonly used hadronic collision simulation packages is presented. The characteristics of the products of hadron-nucleus collisions are analyzed from a general perspective, but focusing on their correlation with…
The mass composition of ultra high-energy cosmic ray (UHECRs) can be inferred from measurements of $X_{\rm max}$ distributions by fitting them with Monte Carlo (MC) predictions for different primary species of nuclei in each energy…
The Pierre Auger Observatory consists of 1660 water-Cherenkov detectors (WCDs) and 27 fluorescence telescopes, covering a surface of 3000 km2 in the province of Mendoza, Argentina. After almost two decades, Auger Phase I has ended the data…
The three hadronic interaction models DPMJET 2.55, QGSJET 01, and SIBYLL 2.1, implemented in the air shower simulation program CORSIKA, are compared in the energy range of interest for the Pierre Auger experiment. The model dependence of…
High-energy cosmic rays interact in the Earth's atmosphere and produce extensive air showers (EASs) which can be measured with large detector arrays at the ground. The interpretation of these measurements relies on models of the EAS…
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…
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…
Hadronic interaction models are a core ingredient of simulations of extensive air showers and pose the major source of uncertainties of predictions of air shower observables. Recently, Pythia~8, a hadronic interaction model popular in…
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…
An efficient scheme for one-dimensional extensive air shower simulation and its implementation in the program CONEX are presented. Explicit Monte Carlo simulation of the high-energy part of hadronic and electromagnetic cascades in the…
High-energy neutrino astronomy represents an open window both on astrophysical mechanisms of particle acceleration and on fundamental interactions. The possibility of detecting them in large earth-based apparatus, like AUGER, AMANDA,…
The interpretation of extensive air shower measurements, produced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays, relies on the correct modeling of the hadron-air interactions that occur during the shower development. The majority of hadronic particles…
The Pierre Auger Observatory's (PAO) shower profile measurements can be used to constrain the chemical composition of the ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) spectrum. In particular, the PAO's measurements of the average depth of shower…