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

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION, INCLUYE S. MOLLERACH

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2016

0031-9007

Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray air showers probe particle physics atenergies beyond the reach of accelerators. Here we introduce a newmethod to test hadronic interaction models without relying on theabsolute energy calibration, and apply it to events with primary energy6-16 EeV (ECM=110 - 170 TeV ), whose longitudinal developmentand lateral distribution were simultaneously measured by the PierreAuger Observatory. The average hadronic shower is 1.33 ±0.16(1.61 ±0.21 ) times larger than predicted using the leadingLHC-tuned models EPOS-LHC (QGSJetII-04), with a corresponding excess ofmuons.