Modeling pion and proton total cross-sections at LHC

TL;DR

This paper compares theoretical models of hadronic total cross-sections at LHC energies to determine if their energy growth is universal, with implications for cosmic ray data analysis.

Contribution

It evaluates different models' predictions for pion-proton, proton-proton, and proton-antiproton cross-sections at LHC energies, highlighting experimental discriminability.

Findings

Models are distinguishable by LHC experiments.

Current data are consistent with multiple models.

Preliminary pion-pion cross-section estimates are provided.

Abstract

To settle the question whether the growth with energy is universal for different hadronic total cross-sections, we present results from theoretical models for pion-proton, proton-proton and proton-antiproton total cross-sections. We show that present and planned experiments at LHC can differentiate between different models, all of which are consistent with presently available (lower energy) data. This study is also relevant for the analysis of those very high energy cosmic ray data which require reliable pion-proton total cross-sections as seeds. A preliminary study of the total pion-pion cross-sections is also made.