Similarity of hadron production inpp and heavy-ion collisions

Hoang, T. F.

doi:10.1007/bf01413113

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…where dn(kA → hY ; E k , E h ) is the number of hadrons h with energies between E h and E h + dE h produced in the collision of the incoming particle k with an air nucleus of atomic number A, and σ kA is the total inelastic cross section for particle k -nucleus A collisions. Experiments studying proton-nucleus [29] and heavy ion [30] collisions obtain energy spectra that are approximately the same as in proton-proton collisions, confirming that the interactions are essentially protonnucleon. So we adopt an energy distribution dn kh /dE h independent of the atomic number of the target.…”

Section: Particle Interactions With Air Nucleimentioning

confidence: 78%

Charm production and high energy atmospheric muon and neutrino fluxes

Thunman

Ingelman

Gondolo

1996

Astroparticle Physics

183

202

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Production of muons and neutrinos in cosmic ray interactions with the atmosphere has been investigated with Monte Carlo models for hadronic interactions. The resulting conventional muon and neutrino fluxes (from π and K decays) agree well with earlier calculations, whereas our prompt fluxes from charm decays are significantly lower than earlier estimates. Charm production is mainly considered as a well defined perturbative QCD process, but we also investigate a hypothetical nonperturbative intrinsic charm component in the proton. The lower charm rate implies better prospects for detecting very high energy neutrinos from cosmic sources. IntroductionThe flux of muons and neutrinos at the earth has an important contribution from decays of particles produced through the interaction of cosmic rays in the atmosphere (for a recent introduction see [1]). This has an interest in its own right, since it reflects primary interactions at energies that can by far exceed the highest available accelerator energies. It is also a background in studies of neutrinos from cosmic sources as attempted in large neutrino telescopes, such as Amanda [2], Baikal [3], Dumand [4] and Nestor [5].Here we present a detailed study of muon and neutrino production in cosmic ray interactions with nuclei in the atmosphere using Monte Carlo simulations [6].At GeV energies the atmospheric muon and neutrino fluxes are dominated by 'conventional' sources, i.e. decays of relatively long-lived particles such as π and K mesons. This is well understood from earlier studies [7,8,9], with which our investigations agree. With increasing energy, the probability increases that such particles interact in the atmosphere before decaying. This implies that even a small fraction of short-lived particles can give the dominant contribution to high energy muon and neutrino fluxes. These 'prompt' muons and neutrinos arise through semi-leptonic decays of hadrons containing heavy quarks, most notably charm.Available data in the multi-TeV energy range, obtained with surface and underground detectors (see e.g. refs. [10][11][12][13]), are still too discrepant to draw definitive conclusions on the flux of 1 thunman@tsl.uu.se 2 ingelman@tsl.uu.se, also at DESY, Hamburg.

show abstract

Section: Particle Interactions With Air Nucleimentioning

confidence: 78%