Primary cosmic-ray nucleon spectrum from the atmospheric gamma-ray and muon data

Abstract

The available experimental inclusive cross-sections for single-pion and kaon production in proton-proton collisions between 0.01 and 2 TeV incident-proton laboratory energy have been used to determine a phenomenological form for the inclusive cross-sections. This has been used together with the recent high-precision measurements of atmospheric gamma-ray and single-muon spectra between 0.002 to 50 TeV to derive the primary nucleon spectrum in the formI(E)=I0E-γ up to the primary energy ≥100 TeV. The parametersI0 and γ, vary in the range 1.75┌2.7 and 2.63┌2.78, respectively.