Systematic uncertainties in air shower measurements from high-energy hadronic interaction models

Abstract

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 to the range of the most energetic cosmic rays observed ($>10^{20}$ eV). Model uncertainties are evaluated within the QGSJET-II model, by varying some of the crucial parameters in the limits allowed by collider data, and between QGSJET-II and other models commonly used in air shower simulations. The crucial parameters relate to hard processes, string fragmentation, diffraction and baryon production. Results on inelastic cross sections, on secondary particle production and on the properties of air showers measured by ground detectors from energies of $10^{12}$ to $10^{19}$ eV are presented.

References in corpus (6)

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Depth of Maximum of Air-Shower Profiles at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurements at Energies above 10^17.8 eV
• Measurement of the proton-air cross-section at $\sqrt{s}=57$ TeV with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Galactic diffuse gamma rays meet the PeV frontier
• DAEMONFLUX: DAta-drivEn MuOn-calibrated atmospheric Neutrino Flux
• High-Energy Galactic Cosmic Rays (Astro2020 Science White Paper)
• Effect of the uncertainty in the hadronic interaction models on the estimation of the sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Calibration of the Cherenkov Telescope Array using Cosmic Ray Electrons