Uncertainty in mean $X_{\max }$ from diffractive dissociation estimated using measurements of accelerator experiments

Abstract

Mass composition is important for understanding the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. However, interpretation of mass composition from air shower experiments is challenging, owing to significant uncertainty in hadronic interaction models adopted in air shower simulation. A particular source of uncertainty is diffractive dissociation, as its measurements in accelerator experiments demonstrated significant systematic uncertainty. In this research, we estimate the uncertainty in $⟨X_{\max }⟩$ from the uncertainty of the measurement of diffractive dissociation by the ALICE experiment. The maximum uncertainty size of the entire air shower was estimated to be ${}_{-5.6}^{+4.0}g/c{\mathrm{m}}^2$ for air showers induced by $10^{17}$ eV proton, which is not negligible in the uncertainty of $⟨X_{\max }⟩$ predictions.

arXiv commentSubmission to SciPost Phys. Proc