The energy dependence of the inelasticity and the nucleonic cascade

Abstract

We obtain a simple solution for the ondimensional nucleonic diffusion equation in the atmosphere assuming both interaction mean free path and inelasticity BS energy dependent. We also show that a fairly accurate description of nucleonic fluxes is obtained by using the average inelasticity bp an inereasing function of energy.

Analytical description of hadronic integral spectra of cosmic-ray superfamilies with Feynman scaling breaking

“…[9] that the charged multiparticle distributions referred to above imply a smooth decrease of inelasticity with energy. It has been shown that such a behavior of multiparticle production is not compatible with some cosmic-ray data, such as the altitude dependence of the intensity of electromagnetic component [9], the energy spectrum of nucleonic component [14], and recent data from Fly's Eye experiment [15], all of them concerning showers generated by a primary cosmic ray at the top of the atmosphere. However, that question still remains unsolved for the case of single-particle generated events, such as superfamilies.…”

Diffractive contribution to the elasticity and to the nucleonic flux in the atmosphere

“…It was shown in Refs. [1,2] that, when one supposes the interaction mean-free-path and the mean elasticity as energy-dependent quantitites, the analytical solution for the nucleonic diffusion equation in the atmosphere is given by…”

“…In previous papers [1,2,3] we have discussed the importance of the energy dependence of the leading particle spectrum, which was done through the mean inelasticity. As a first approach, we have neglected the diffractive interactions in the proton-air collisions.…”

Analytical study of the hadronic lateral component in the atmosphere

“…Applying this method we can reproduce the solutions of Nishimura to eletromagnetic cascades written in the Mellin's space 9]. Analytical solutions in the con guration space have been obtained applying this method to the study of hadronic cascades iniciated on the top of atmosphere by a primary ux with a power-law energy dependence 10,11].…”