Proceedings of the 38th International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics (ISMD08)
Proceedings of ISMD08
arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S. Ostapchenko.
Proceedings of ISMD08
We calculate for the nearest active galactic nucleus (AGN), Centaurus A, the flux of high energy cosmic rays and of accompanying secondary photons and neutrinos expected from hadronic interactions in the source. We use as two basic models for the generation of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECR) shock acceleration in the radio jet and acceleration in the regular electromagnetic field close to the core of the AGN. While scattering on photons dominates in scenarios with acceleration close to the core, scattering on gas becomes more important if acceleration takes place along the jet. Normalizing the UHECR flux from Centaurus A to the observations of the Auger experiment, the neutrino flux may be marginally observable in a 1 km$^3$ neutrino telescope, if a steep UHECR flux $\d N/\d E\propto E^{-α}$ with $α=2.7$ extends down to $10^{17}$ eV. The associated photon flux is close to or exceeds the observational data of atmospheric Cherenkov and $γ$-ray telescopes for $α\gsim 2$. In particular, we find that already present data favour either a softer UHECR injection spectrum than $α=2.7$ for Centaurus A or a lower UHECR flux than expected from the normalization to the Auger observations.
On basis of the theorem of a universal shower development stating that a hadronically generated extensive air shower is completely described by the primary energy, the position of the shower maximum and a parameter related to the total muon number, the so-called correlation curve method is developed and applied to KASCADE data. Correlation information of the muon and electron content of showers measured by the KASCADE experiment are used for the reconstruction of energy and mass of primary cosmic rays. Systematic uncertainties of the method and the results are discussed in detail. It is shown that by this method general tendencies in spectrum and composition indeed can be revealed, but the absolute normalization in energy and mass scale requires much more detailed simulations.
Interpretation of EAS measurements strongly depends on detailed air shower simulations. The uncertainty in the prediction of shower observables for different primary particles and energies is currently dominated by differences between hadronic interaction models. The new models QGSJETII-3 and EPOS 1.6, which reproduce all major results of existing accelerator data (including detailed data of RHIC experiments for EPOS), have been implemented in the air shower simulation programs CORSIKA and CONEX. We show predictions of these new models and compare them with those from older models such as QGSJET01 or SIBYLL. Results for important air shower observables are discussed in detail.
Unitarity cuts of enhanced Pomeron diagrams are analyzed in the framework of the Reggeon Field Theory. Assuming the validity of the Abramovskii-Gribov-Kancheli cutting rules, we derive a complete set of cut non-loop enhanced graphs and observe important cancellations between certain sub-classes of the latter. We demonstrate also how the present method can be generalized to take into consideration Pomeron loop contributions.
We discuss the signatures of the transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays in different scenarios, giving most attention to the dip scenario. The dip is a feature in the diffuse spectrum of ultra-high energy (UHE) protons in the energy range $1\times 10^{18} - 4\times 10^{19}$ eV, which is caused by electron-positron pair production on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The dip scenario provides a simple physical description of the transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays. Here we summarize the signatures of the pair production dip model for the transition, most notably the spectrum, the anisotropy and the chemical composition. The main focus of our work is however on the description of the features that arise in the elongation rate and in the distribution of the depths of shower maximum $X_{\rm max}$ in the dip scenario. We find that the curve for $X_{\max}(E)$ shows a sharp increase with energy, which reflects a sharp transition from an iron dominated flux at low energies to a proton dominated flux at $E\sim 10^{18}$ eV. We also discuss in detail the shape of the $X_{\max}$ distributions for cosmic rays of given energy and demonstrate that this represents a powerful tool to discriminate between the dip scenario and other possible models of the transition.
We calculate the yield of high energy neutrinos produced in astrophysical sources for arbitrary interaction depths $τ_0$ and magnetic field strengths $B$. We take into account energy loss processes like synchrotron radiation and diffusion of charged particles in turbulent magnetic fields as well as the scattering of secondaries on background photons and the direct production of charm neutrinos. Meson-photon interactions are simulated with an extended version of the SOPHIA model. Diffusion leads to an increased path-length before protons leave the source of size R_s and therefore magnetized sources lose their transparency below the energy $E\sim 10^{18}{\rm eV} (R_s/{\rm pc}) (B/{\rm mG}) τ_0^{1/α}$, with $α=1/3$ and 1 for Kolmogorov and Bohm diffusion, respectively. Moreover, the neutrino flux is suppressed above the energy where synchrotron energy losses become important for charged particles. As a consequence, the energy spectrum and the flavor composition of neutrinos are strongly modified both at low and high energies even for sources with $τ_0\lsim 1$.
General physics of very high energy hadronic interactions is discussed. Special attention is payed to the contribution of semihard processes to the interaction dynamics and to the role of parton shadowing and parton density saturation. In particular, the implementation of non-linear interaction effects in the QGSJET-II model is discussed in detail. The predictions of the model are compared to selected accelerator data, including ones of the RHIC collider, and the relation to the calculated extensive air shower characteristics is discussed. Finally, the potential of accelerator and cosmic ray experiments for constraining model predictions is analyzed.
An efficient scheme for one-dimensional extensive air shower simulation and its implementation in the program CONEX are presented. Explicit Monte Carlo simulation of the high-energy part of hadronic and electromagnetic cascades in the atmosphere is combined with a numeric solution of cascade equations for smaller energy sub-showers to obtain accurate shower predictions. The developed scheme allows us to calculate not only observables related to the number of particles (shower size) but also ionization energy deposit profiles which are needed for the interpretation of data of experiments employing the fluorescence light technique. We discuss in detail the basic algorithms developed and illustrate the power of the method. It is shown that Monte Carlo, numerical, and hybrid air shower calculations give consistent results which agree very well with those obtained within the CORSIKA program.
Non-linear effects in hadronic interactions are treated by means of enhanced pomeron diagrams, assuming that pomeron-pomeron coupling is dominated by soft partonic processes. It is shown that the approach allows to resolve a seeming contradiction between realistic parton momentum distributions, measured in deep inelastic scattering experiments, and the energy behavior of total proton-proton cross section. Also a general consistency with both ``soft'' and ``hard'' diffraction data is demonstrated. An important feature of the proposed scheme is that the contribution of semi-hard processes to the interaction eikonal contains a significant non-factorizable part. On the other hand, the approach preserves the QCD factorization picture for inclusive high p_t jet production.
Dominant contributions of enhanced Pomeron diagrams to elastic hadron-hadron scattering amplitude are re-summed to all orders. The formalism is applied to calculate total hadronic cross sections and elastic scattering slopes. An agreement with earlier results is obtained.
Contemporary models of hadronic interactions are reviewed. Basic phenomenological approaches are compared, with an emphasizes on the predicted air shower characteristics. Special attention is payed to the remaining discrepancies between present hadronic MC generators and cosmic ray data. Finally, future prospects concerning model improvements are discussed, in particular, regarding the possibilities to discriminate between different models on the basis of accelerator or cosmic ray measurements.
The influence of non-linear interaction effects on the characteristics of hadronic collisions and on the development of extensive air showers (EAS) is investigated. Hadronic interactions are treated phenomenologically in the framework of Gribov's Reggeon approach with non-linear corrections being described by enhanced (Pomeron-Pomeron interaction) diagrams. A re-summation algorithm for higher order enhanced graphs is proposed. The approach is applied to develop a new hadronic interaction model QGSJET-II, treating non-linear effects explicitely in individual hadronic and nuclear collisions. The model is applied to EAS modelization and the obtained results are compared to the original QGSJET predictions. Possible consequences for EAS data interpretation are discussed.
Since a number of years the QGSJET model has been successfully used by different groups in the field of high energy cosmic rays. Current work is devoted to the first general update of the model. The key improvement is connected to an account for non-linear interaction effects which are of crucial importance for reliable model extrapolation into ultra-high energy domain. The proposed formalism allows to obtain a consistent description of hadron-hadron cross sections and hadron structure functions and to treat non-linear effects explicitely in individual hadronic and nuclear collisions. Other ameliorations concern the treatment of low mass diffraction, employment of realistic nuclear density profiles, and re-calibration of model parameters using a wider set of accelerator data.
The new hadronic Monte Carlo model QGSJET-II is applied for extensive air shower (EAS) calculations. The obtained results are compared to the predictions of the original QGSJET and of the SIBYLL 2.1 interaction models. It is shown that non-linear effects change substantially model predictions for hadron-nucleus interactions and produce observable effects for calculated EAS characteristics. Finally the impact of the new model on the interpretation of air shower array data is discussed.
A hybrid simulation code is developed that is suited for fast one-dimensional simulations of shower profiles, including fluctuations. It combines the Monte Carlo simulation of high energy interactions with a fast numerical solution of cascade equations for the resulting distributions of secondary particles. Results obtained with this new code, called CONEX, are presented and compared to CORSIKA predictions.
We present an introductory lecture on general features of cosmic rays, for non-experts, and some recent developments concerning cascade equations for air shower developments.
Problem of high PT suppression in RHIC data is generally associated to jet quenching in a dense medium. We recently proposed a new approach to high energy nuclear scattering, which treats the initial stage of heavy ion collisions in a sophisticated way, and whose numerical solution is the model NEXUS. Within this model, there is no jet quenching, but the explicit energy conservation leads to similar results. RHIC high PT ratio between AA and pp results can be reproduced for different centrality bins.