Abstract
Uncertainties of the model energy spectra of the most energetic secondary charged mesons are discussed. Computer simulations of the partial energy spectra of the atmospheric vertical muons induced by primary cosmic particles with various fixed energies in terms of hadronic interactions models had been carried out with the help of the CORSIKA package. These partial spectra have been convolved with the contemporary spectra of the primary cosmic particles in the energy range 0.1-10 000 TeV. Results of simulations are compared with the contemporary data of the atmospheric vertical muon flux. Comparison shows that all models underestimate the production of secondary charged π±-mesons (and K±-mesons) by a factor of ~ 1.4 ÷ 2 at the highest energies. This underestimation induces a more rapid development of extensive air showers in the atmosphere and results in uncertainties in estimates of energy and composition of the primary cosmic particles.
Highlights
Extensive air showers (EAS) are the only tool to understand the origin and composition of cosmic rays, their possible sources and the transport of cosmic particles in various magnetic fields on their way to the Earth at very high energies
The energy of showers calculated in terms of the QGSJET II-03 [3] model with the help of the surface detectors signals at the Telescope Array [10] happened to be 1.27 times lager than this energy estimated with help of the fluorescence light
The partial energy spectra S p(Eμ, E) of the atmospheric vertical muons simulated for various fixed energies E of the primary protons in terms of the EPOS LHC model are shown in figure 3
Summary
Extensive air showers (EAS) are the only tool to understand the origin and composition of cosmic rays, their possible sources and the transport of cosmic particles in various magnetic fields on their way to the Earth at very high energies. All features of the energy spectrum, arrival directions and composition of the primary cosmic particles should be determined through an analysis of the EAS data These data as signals in the surface and underground detectors are usually interpreted in terms of various models of hadronic interactions [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. To ensure that results of such interpretation are as accurate as possible these models should be thoroughly tested These models are tested with the help of accelerator data at small values (∼0) of the pseudorapidity, η, where most of secondary particles (mainly mesons) are produced [11,12,13]. Let us note that the longitudinal development of EAS de-
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