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

THE PIERRE AUGER COLLABORATION (P. HANSEN PERTENECE A LA COLABORACION-ORDEN ALFABETICO)

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2012 vol. 109 p. 1 - 9

0031-9007

We report a measurement of the proton-air cross section for particle production at the center-of-massenergy per nucleon of 57 TeV. This is derived from the distribution of the depths of shower maxima observedwith the Pierre Auger Observatory: systematic uncertainties are studied in detail. Analyzing the tail of thedistribution of the shower maxima, a proton-air cross section of 505 +- 22 stat mb is found