Related papers: Cosmic Ray particle production
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…
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…
One of the most striking astrophysical phenomena today is the existence of cosmic ray particles with energies in excess of 10^20 eV. While their presence has been confirmed by a number of experiments, it is not clear where and how these…
The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 1PeV have to be deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers which they initiate. In this review, a summary of the phenomenology of these giant air showers is…
Hadronic interaction models at cosmic ray (CR) energies are inherently uncertain due to the lack of a fundamental theoretical description of soft hadronic and nuclear interactions and the large extrapolation required from collider energies…
Cosmic rays have been observed up to energies $10^8$ times larger than those of the best particle accelerators. Studies of astrophysical particles (hadrons, neutrinos and photons) at their highest observed energies have implications for…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely associated with the most energetic processes…
We will discuss the main relevant aspects of the physics of ultra high energy cosmic rays. After a short recap of the experimental evidences, we will review theoretical models aiming at describing the sources of these extremely energetic…
High-energy cosmic ray events present important challenges to particle astrophysics. Their nature and origin are often not well understood and, as they occur in an energy domain not accessible to particle accelerators, there is no clear…
We review the physics of the highest energy cosmic rays. The discovery of their sources, still unknown, will reveal the most energetic astrophysical objects in the universe and could unveil new physics beyond the standard model of particle…
The Earth is continuously showered by charged cosmic ray particles, naturally produced atomic nuclei moving with velocity close to the speed of light. Among these are ultra high energy cosmic ray particles with energy exceeding 5x10^19 eV,…
Very high energy cosmic rays are typically studied by measuring extensive air showers formed by secondary particles produced in collisions with air nuclei. The indirect character of the measurement makes the physics interpretation of cosmic…
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…
At high energy, cosmic rays can only be studied by measuring the extensive air showers they produce in the atmosphere of the Earth. Although the main features of air showers can be understood within a simple model of successive…
A simple method of the vertical muon energy spectrum simulations have been suggested. These calculations have been carried out in terms of various models of hadronic interactions. The most energetic $ \pi^\pm $-mesons and K$^\pm $-mesons…
Solar flare observations are used to demonstrate the new technique of abundance determination based on gamma ray line emission produced by accelerated particle bombardment. Some of the implications of similar gamma ray line emission…
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…
Contrary to expectations, several cosmic ray events with energies above $10^{20}$ eV have been observed. The flux of such events is well above the predicted Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff due to the pion production (via the $\Delta$…
The main goal of the present lectures is to outline the key particle interactions and energy loss mechanisms in the Galactic medium that high-energy particles are subject to. These interactions are an important ingredient entering the…
Understanding hadronic interactions at high energies represents a very important ingredient for modeling high energy cosmic ray air showers. In this paper, we present a new approach to simulate hadronic interactions, including…