Testing Hadronic Interactions at Ultrahigh Energies with Air Showers Measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory

Pierre Auger Collaboration

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    Abstract

    Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray air showers probe particle physics at energies beyond the reach of accelerators. Here we introduce a new method to test hadronic interaction models without relying on the absolute energy calibration, and apply it to events with primary energy 6-16 EeV (E-CM = 110-170 TeV), whose longitudinal development and lateral distribution were simultaneously measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory. The average hadronic shower is 1.33 +/- 0.16 (1.61 +/- 0.21) times larger than predicted using the leading LHC-tuned models EPOS-LHC (QGSJetII-04), with a corresponding excess of muons.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number192001
    Number of pages9
    JournalPhysical Review Letters
    Volume117
    Issue number19
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 31-Oct-2016

    Keywords

    • COLLISIONS

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