Measurement of the Proton-Air Cross Section at sqrt(s) = 57 TeV with the Pierre Auger Observatory

PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION, MORENO JUAN CRUZ

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2012 p. 622002 - 622016

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. Analyzing the tail of the distribution of the shower maxima, a proton-air cross section of [505 +- 22 (stat) +28 -36 (syst)] mb is found.