Predictions of ultrahigh-energy proton-air production cross sections from accelerator data

Abstract

We make new predictions of ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{p\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{air}}^{\mathrm{prod}}$, the proton-air inelastic production cross section, at $pp$ center-of-mass energies $0.1\ensuremath{\lesssim}\sqrt{s}\ensuremath{\lesssim}100\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$, using high-energy predictions from a saturated Froissart bound parametrization of accelerator data on forward $\overline{p}p$ and $pp$ scattering amplitudes, together with Glauber theory. The parametrization of the $\overline{p}p$ and $pp$ cross sections incorporates analyticity constraints and unitarity, allowing accurate extrapolations to ultrahigh energies. Our predictions are in excellent agreement with available cosmic-ray extensive air shower measurements, both in magnitude and in energy dependence.