Theoretical considerations on the extraction of pp cross sections from cosmic ray absorption data

Abstract

It has been suggested, based on the application of Glauber theory to proton-air collisions, that a proton-proton total cross section which rises with energy as 1n 2 s is consistent with cosmic ray data. We show that if instead of a constant width, one uses a pp diffractive width which decreases consistent with present data, the cosmic ray data continue to rule out constant σ pp T. However, the size of the derived pp cross section is somewhat sensitive to the width, and in the relevant energy range 15% uncertainty in σ pp T is the maximum consequence of uncertainties in the width. Repetition of these experiments on different nuclei is not a particularly useful way to resolve these width-dependent effects.