Related papers: Extensive Air Shower Simulations at the Highest En…
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…
Cosmic-ray particles with ultra-high energies (above $10^{18}$ eV) are studied through the properties of extensive air showers which they initiate in the atmosphere. The Pierre Auger Observatory detects these showers with unprecedented…
The composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays is still poorly known and constitutes a very important topic in the field of high-energy astrophysics. Detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays is carried out via the extensive air showers…
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…
Presently large systematic uncertainties remain in the description of hadronic interactions at ultra-high energies and a fully consistent description of air-shower experimental data is yet to be reached. The amount of data collected by the…
In this report a summary of recent developments in the fields of high-energy nuclear interactions (HE 1) and air shower phenomenology (HE 2) is presented. New results from accelerator and cosmic-ray experiments and the progress in the…
The interaction of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) with the atoms of the atmosphere can occur at center-of-mass energies that surpass 100 TeV, while present human-made accelerators go up to 13 TeV. Therefore it provides a unique…
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest detector of ultra--high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). It uses an array of fluorescence telescopes and particle detectors at the ground to obtain detailed measurements of the energy…
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,…
Measurements of cosmic ray particles at energies above E = 5 x 10^{14} eV are performed by large area ground based air shower experiments. Only they provide the collection power required for obtaining sufficient statistics at the low flux…
The Pierre Auger Observatory allows the measurement of both longitudinal profiles and lateral particle distributions of high-energy showers. The former trace the overall shower development, mainly of the electromagnetic component close to…
Extensive Air Showers are still the only source of information on primary cosmic rays and their interactions at energies above PeV. However, this information is hidden inside the multiplicative character of the cascading process. Inspite of…
Recently, the energy determination of extensive air showers using radio emission has been shown to be both precise and accurate. In particular, radio detection offers the opportunity for an independent measurement of the absolute energy of…
The aim of this report of the Working Group on Hadronic Interactions and Air Shower Simulation is to give an overview of the status of the field, emphasizing open questions and a comparison of relevant results of the different experiments.…
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…
In the sub-TeV regime, the most widely used hadronic interaction models disagree significant lying their predictions for post-first interaction and ground-level particle spectra from cosmic ray induced air showers. These differences…
To interpret the mean depth of cosmic ray air shower maximum and its dispersion, we parametrize those two observables as functions of the first two moments of the $\ln A$ distribution. We examine the goodness of this simple method through…
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest extensive air shower detector. Based on a hybrid system, this experiment measures the longitudinal shower development and the particles at the ground. This detection system allows the extraction…
We summarise some basic issues relevant to the optimisation and design of space-based experiments for the observation of the Extensive Air Showers produced by Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Particles interacting with the atmosphere. A number of…
Air showers, produced by the interaction of energetic cosmic rays with the atmosphere, are an excellent alternative to study particle physics at energies beyond any human-made particle accelerator. For that, it is necessary to identify…