Measurement of forward photon production cross-section in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV with the LHCf detector

Abstract

In this paper, we report the production cross-section of forward photons in the pseudorapidity regions of $\hat{I}\cdot >10.94$ and $8.99>\hat{I}\cdot >8.81$, measured by the LHCf experiment with proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. The results from the analysis of 0.191 $\mathrm{n}{\mathrm{b}}^{-1}$ of data obtained in June 2015 are compared to the predictions of several hadronic interaction models that are used in air-shower simulations for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. Although none of the models agree perfectly with the data, EPOS-LHC shows the best agreement with the experimental data among the models.

21 pages, 4 figures