Rising cross sections in QCD and the cosmic ray data

Abstract

QCD suggested pattern of the Pomeron is applied to an analysis of asymptotic properties of the proton-proton total cross section. There is an accumulating evidence for the QCD Pomeron having an intercept δ = αp(0) - 1 = 0.2–0.4: 1. i)Large ϱ p p = Re/Im = +0.24 ≠ 0.04 at √s = 546 GeV from UA4 , 2. ii)Large p p total cross section of 85.5 ≠ 6.7 mb from E710, 3. iii)The Akeno & Fly's Eye data on the p-air absorption cross section. After comments on the phenomenology of the ACD Pomeron and onset of the Froissart asymptotics of σ tot ( pp), I will concentrate on evaluation of the Cosmic Ray data. I emphasize that, before commissioning SSC, the Cosmic Ray experiments will remain a unique, and reliable , source of information on the very High Energy behavior of σ in ( pp). Major observation is that, in view of the unitarity enforced correlation between the pp diffraction slope and σ in ( pp), determination of σ in( pp) from σ abs( p- air) is virtually uncertainty free.