Study of low energy hadronic interaction models based on BESS observed cosmic ray proton and antiproton spectra at medium high altitude

📝 Abstract

We study low energy hadronic interaction models based on BESS observed cosmic ray proton and antiproton spectra at medium high altitude. Among the three popular low energy interaction models, we find that FLUKA reproduces results of BESS observations on secondary proton spectrum reasonably well over the whole observed energy range, the model UrQMD works well at relatively higher energies whereas spectrum obtained with GHEISHA differs significantly from the measured spectrum. Simulated antiproton spectrum with FLUKA, however, exhibits significant deviations from the BESS observation wheras UrQMD and GHEISHA reproduce the BESS observations within the experimental error.

💡 Analysis

We study low energy hadronic interaction models based on BESS observed cosmic ray proton and antiproton spectra at medium high altitude. Among the three popular low energy interaction models, we find that FLUKA reproduces results of BESS observations on secondary proton spectrum reasonably well over the whole observed energy range, the model UrQMD works well at relatively higher energies whereas spectrum obtained with GHEISHA differs significantly from the measured spectrum. Simulated antiproton spectrum with FLUKA, however, exhibits significant deviations from the BESS observation wheras UrQMD and GHEISHA reproduce the BESS observations within the experimental error.

📄 Content

arXiv:0901.0905v1 [astro-ph.HE] 7 Jan 2009 Study of low energy hadronic interaction models based on BESS observed cosmic ray proton and antiproton spectra at medium high altitude Arunava Bhadra1, Sanjay K. Ghosh2,3, Partha S. Joarder3, Arindam Mukherjee1, and Sibaji Raha2,3 1 High Energy & Cosmic Ray Research Centre, University of North Bengal, Siliguri, WB 734013 India 2 Department of Physics, Bose Institute, 93/1 A.P.C. Road, Kolkata, India 700009 3 Centre for Astroparticle Physics and Space Science, Bose Institute, Block EN,Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata, India 700091 We study low energy hadronic interaction models based on BESS observed cosmic ray proton and antiproton spectra at medium high altitude. Among the three popular low energy interaction models, we find that FLUKA reproduces results of BESS observations on secondary proton spectrum reasonably well over the whole observed energy range, the model UrQMD works well at relatively higher energies whereas spectrum obtained with GHEISHA differs significantly from the measured spectrum. Simulated antiproton spectrum with FLUKA, however, exhibits significant deviations from the BESS observation wheras UrQMD and GHEISHA reproduce the BESS observations within the experimental error. PACS numbers: 95.85.Ry, 96.40.-z Keywords: Cosmic rays secondaries, FLUKA, UrQMD, GHEISHA I. INTRODUCTION Precise examination of the development of cosmic ray shower in the earth’s atmosphere is important in various contexts such as in the study of atmospheric neutrino oscillations or in the study of ultra high energy cosmic rays. The detailed process of development of such an extensive air shower (EAS) is, however, too complicated to be amenable to simple analytical descriptions. The main results concerning the flux and the other important features of the secondary cosmic ray particles in an EAS are thus obtained principally through the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation techniques. MC simulations of the extensive air shower is strongly dependent on our knowledge of the interaction mecha- nisms of energetic particles. Such knowledge on particle interactions is somewhat uncertain at high energies as the accelerator data for relevant target-projectile combi- nations covering the whole kinematic region are not yet available. Even at low (below ∼5 GeV) and intermediate (from few GeV to few hundred GeV) energies, there is a lack of data on hadron-nucleus interactions and almost no measurements are available for the particle production in pion-nucleus collisions. One, therefore, relies mostly on theoretical models of particle interactions in such cases. The interaction models used in different simulation pro- grams are necessarily of the nature of extrapolations of the known processes and/or of the low energy accelerator data so that each of such models has its own parameter- ization guided by some (mainly QCD-motivated) theo- retical prescriptions. The limited knowledge of particle interactions is considered to be one of the main sources of uncertainty in the estimation of the secondary particle flux in an EAS. In view of the large uncertainties involved in the de- scription of high energy particle interactions, the influ- ence of high energy hadronic models on air shower observ- ables has been a topic of active reserach for quite some time. Recent studies, however, suggest that the low and the intermediate energy hadronic interaction models also play crucial role in the precise estimation of the low en- ergy secondary cosmic ray flux in the atmosphere [Wentz et al., 2003; Djemil, Attallah and Capdevielle, 2007; Sanuki et al., 2007] simultaneously influencing some of the important characteristics of the extensive air showers. A strong dependence of the lateral particle distribution of the simulated extensive air showers at large core dis- tances on the intermediate energy hadronic interaction models has been reported [Drescher et al., 2004]. The aim of the present work is to examine the sensi- tivity of the low energy secondary proton and antiproton fluxes on the hadronic interaction models that are partic- ularly suitable for use in the intermediate energy range. The simulated showers of secondary protons, that arise from hadronic interactions of the forward kinematic re- gion, are expected to be particularly responsive to the choice of interaction models. To generate secondary fluxes for different models of hadronic interactions, the air shower simulation program CORSIKA(COsmic Ray SImulation for KAscade) version 6.600 [Heck et al., 1998; www-ik.fzk.de/heck/corsika/] is exploited here. A novel feature of the CORSIKA program is that it al- lows one to choose any of the three popular models, namely GHEISHA [Fesefeldt, 1985], FLUKA [Fass‘o et al., 2000 ; www.fluka.org/] and UrQMD [Bleicher et al., 1999; www.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/˜urqmd/], for the portrayal of the intermediate energy hadronic in- teractions as well as one of the seven different mod- els, namely DPMJET [Ranft, 1995], HDPM [Capdeviell

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