The strong interaction at the collider and cosmic-rays frontiers

TL;DR

This paper compares early LHC proton-proton collision data with various Monte Carlo models used in cosmic-ray physics, highlighting discrepancies and implications for modeling high-energy interactions.

Contribution

It provides the first comparison of LHC data with models like QGSJET, EPOS, and SIBYLL, revealing their limitations in reproducing energy evolution of observables.

Findings

None of the models fully match the data across all observables.

Discrepancies suggest need for improved modeling of non-perturbative dynamics.

Implications for cosmic-ray interaction simulations at highest energies.

Abstract

First data on inclusive particle production measured in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are compared to predictions of various hadron-interaction Monte Carlos (QGSJET, EPOS and SIBYLL) used commonly in high-energy cosmic-ray physics. While reasonable overall agreement is found for some of the models, none of them reproduces consistently the sqrt(s) evolution of all the measured observables. We discuss the implications of the new LHC data for the modeling of the non-perturbative and semihard parton dynamics in hadron-hadron and cosmic-rays interactions at the highest energies studied today.