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

H. WAHLBERG Y PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2016

0031-9007

Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray air showers probe particle physics at energies beyond the reach ofaccelerators. Here we introduce a new method to test hadronic interaction models without relying onthe absolute energy calibration, and apply it to events with primary energy 6-16 EeV (E CM = 110-170TeV), whose longitudinal development and lateral distribution were simultaneously measured by thePierre Auger Observatory. The average hadronic shower is 1.33±0.16 (1.61±0.21) times larger thanpredicted using the leading LHC-tuned models EPOS-LHC (QGSJetII-04), with a correspondingexcess of muons.