Recent results from the cosmic ray program of the NA61/SHINE experiment

TL;DR

This paper presents new measurements of hadron production in pion-carbon collisions at CERN, which are crucial for improving models of muon production in cosmic ray air showers and understanding discrepancies in muon counts.

Contribution

It provides detailed production spectra for various particles at specific energies, comparing them to existing models to identify potential sources of muon excess in cosmic ray experiments.

Findings

Production spectra of multiple hadrons measured and compared to models.

Identifies discrepancies in (anti)baryon and $ ho^0$ production rates.

Results inform improvements in air shower simulation models.

Abstract

NA61/SHINE is a fixed target experiment designed to study hadron-proton, hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus interactions at the CERN Super-Proton-Synchrotron. In this paper we summarize the results from pion-carbon collisions recorded at beam momenta of 158 and 350 GeV/c. Hadron production measurements in this type of interactions is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the muon production in extensive air showers. In particular, production of (anti)baryons and $\rho^0$ are mechanisms responsible for increasing the number of muons which reaches the ground. The underestimation of the (anti)baryons or $\rho^0$ production rates in current hadronic interaction models could be one of the sources of the excess of muons observed by cosmic ray experiments. The results on the production spectra of $\pi^{\pm}$, K$^{\pm}$, p, $\bar{\text{p}}$, $\Lambda$, $\bar{\Lambda}$, K$^{0}_\text{S}$, $\rho^0$, $\omega$ and K$^{0*}$ are presented, as well as their comparison to predictions of hadronic interaction models currently used in air shower simulations.