Measurement of the proton-air cross-section at sqrt(s) = 57 TeV with the Pierre Auger Observatory

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION (AUTOR 434 DE 474); M. TUEROS

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2012 vol. 109 p. 62002 - 62011

0031-9007

We report a measurement of the proton-air cross-section for particle production at the center-of-mass energy per nucleon of 57 TeV. This is derived from the distribution of the depths of shower maxima observed with the Pierre Auger Observatory: systematic uncertainties are studied in detail. Analysing the tail of the distribution of the shower maxima, a proton-air cross-section of $[505\pm22(stat)^{+28}_{-36}(sys)]$ mb is found.