Non-extensivity Parameter of Thermodynamical Model of Hadronic Interactions at LHC energies

The LHC measurements above SPS and Tevatron energies give the opportunity to test predictions of non-extensive thermodynamical picture of hadronic interaction to examine measured transverse momenta distributions for new interaction energy range. We determined Tsallis model non-extensivity parameter for the hadronization process before short-lived particles decayed and distort the initial p_t distribution. We have shown that it follows exactly smooth rise determined at lower energies below present LHC record. The shape of the q parameter energy dependence is consistent with expectations and the evidence of the asymptotic limit may be seen.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figure

Depth of maximum of extensive air showers and cosmic ray composition above 10**17 eV in the geometrical multichain model of nuclei interactions

The depth of maximum for extensive air showers measured by Fly's Eye and Yakutsk experiments is analysed. The analysis depends on the hadronic interaction model that determine cascade development. The novel feature found in the cascading process for nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energies leads to a fast increase of the inelasticity in heavy nuclei interactions without changing the hadron-hadron interaction properties. This effects the development of the extensive air showers initiated by heavy primaries. The detailed calculations were performed using the recently developed geometrical multichain model and the CORSIKA simulation code. The agreement with data on average depth of shower maxima, the falling slope of the maxima distribution, and these distribution widths are found for the very heavy cosmic ray mass spectrum (slightly heavier than expected in the diffusion model at about 3*10**17 eV and similar to the Fly's Eye composition at this energy).Comment: 11pp (9 eps figures

Educational studies of cosmic rays with telescope of Geiger-Muller counters

A group of high school students (XII Liceum) in the framework of the Roland Maze Project has built a compact telescope of three Geiger-Muller counters. The connection between the telescope and PC computer was also created and programed by students involved in the Project. This has allowed students to use their equipment to perform serious scientific measurements concerning the single cosmic ray muon flux at ground level and below. These measurements were then analyzed with the programs based on the 'nowadays' knowledge on statistics. An overview of the apparatus, methods and results were presented at several students conferences and recently won the first prize in a national competition of high school students scientific work. The telescope itself, in spite of its 'scientific' purposes, is built in such a way that it is hung on a wall in a school physics lab and counts muons continuously. This can help to raise the interest for studying physics among others. At present a few (3) groups of young participants of the Roland Maze Project have already built their own telescopes for their schools and some others are working on it. This work is a perfect example of what can be done by young people when respective opportunities are created by more experienced researchers and a little help and advice is given.Comment: 5 figures, 10 page

Bose-Einstein source of intermittency in hadronic interactions

The multi-particle Bose-Einstein correlations are the source of ''intermittency'' in high energy hadronic collisions. The power-law like increase of factorial moments with decreasing bin size was obtained by complete event weighing technique with gaussian approximation of space-time particle emitting source shape. The value of source size parameter was found to be higher than the common one fitted with the help of the standard Handbury Brown-Twiss procedure.Comment: 12

On the Discovery of the GZK Cut-off

The recent claim of the '5 sigma' observation of the Greisen and Zatzepin and Kuzmin cut-off by the HiRes group based on their nine years data is a significant step toward the eventual solution of the one of the most intriguing questions which has been present in physics for more than forty years. However the word 'significance' is used in the mentioned paper in the sense which is not quite obvious. In the present paper we persuade that this claim is a little premature.Comment: 10 page

EAS experiment on board of the Airbus A380

We consider taking the opportunity of about 10.000 hours of test of the Airbus A380, and to install at passenger space detectors for high energy cosmic ray events. The altitude of 10 km (250 g/cm 2 ) would give opportunity to measure EAS originating from heavy primaries to energies exceeding 10 7 GeV, and also coming without interaction proton component beyond the energy of the knee. At the altitude the iron originated EAS are well developed and registering their lateral distribution in 70 meters long cabin it is possible to distinguish them from proton originated EAS. Hadron component of EAS (registered as number of secondary hadrons produced in the detector) would help in discrimination and energy estimation. On another hand, registrations of high energy protons (without EAS) would enable to measure high energy proton spectrum. The energy of the proton would be estimated via hadron multiplicity in single interaction inside the detector. We propose to use about 60 modules of 0.5 m 2 of active detectors with scintillators to detect E-M component and carbon target with lead layer to detect the hadronic component via neutron registrations

Lateral distribution functions for giant air showers

We have compared the lateral analytical structure functions coming from cascade theory to the numerical distributions generated by EAS Monte Carlo simulations and to the empirical functions used in giant air showers experiments. Introducing the Gaussian hypergeometric formalism, we have improved the analytical description in the most common topological situations and we propose a new function characterized by both terms fitted separately to the electron-positron and the muon components. Important effects in the accuracy of the core position determination are underlined and consequences for the primary energy estimation are discussed. The consecutive treatment and interpretation of the data contained in the catalogues of Volcano Ranch and Yakutsk, completed by the most energetic event of AGASA, are presented. Results might have important implications for detector configuration of the future giant air shower arrays

Mass Composition of Cosmic Rays in the Range 2 x 10^17 - 3 x 10^18 Measured with Haverah Park Array

At the Haverah Park Array a number of air shower observables were measured that are relevant to the determination of the mass composition of cosmic rays. In this paper we discuss measurements of the risetime of signals in large area water-Cherenkov detectors and of the lateral distribution function of the water-Cherenkov signal. The former are used to demonstrate that the CORSIKA code, using the QGSJET98 model, gives an adequate description of the data with a low sensitivity, in this energy range, to assumptions about primary mass. By contrast the lateral distribution is sufficiently well measured that there is mass sensitivity. We argue that in the range 0.2-1.0 EeV the data are well represented with a bi-modal composition of 34+-2 % protons and the rest iron. We also discuss the systematic errors induced by the choice of hadronic model.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

Large Transverse Momenta in Statistical Models of High Energy Interactions

The creation of particles with large transverse momenta in high energy hadronic collisions is a long standing problem. The transition from small- (soft) to hard- parton scattering `high-pt' events is rather smooth. In this paper we apply the non-extensive statistical framework to calculate transverse momentum distributions of long lived hadrons created at energies from low (sqrt(s)~10 GeV) to the highest energies available in collider experiments (sqrt(s)~2000 GeV). Satisfactory agreement with the experimental data is achieved. The systematic increase of the non-extensivity parameter with energy found can be understood as phenomenological evidence for the increased role of long range correlations in the hadronization process. Predictions concerning the rise of average transverse momenta up to the highest cosmic ray energies are also given and discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure