Hadron Interactions for Arbitrary Energies and Species, with Applications to Cosmic rays

TL;DR

This paper extends the Pythia event generator to model hadron interactions across various energies and species, enabling applications in cosmic ray and detector studies.

Contribution

It introduces new models for hadron collision cross sections and parton distribution functions for diverse hadrons, broadening the generator's applicability.

Findings

Extended hadronic modeling to include various hadron species

Demonstrated applications in cosmic ray and detector simulations

Provided new code for future research use

Abstract

The Pythia event generator is used in several contexts to study hadron and lepton interactions, notably $pp$ and $p\bar{p}$ collisions. In this article we extend the hadronic modelling to encompass the collision of a wide range of hadrons $h$ with either a proton or a neutron, or with a simplified model of nuclear matter. To this end we model $hp$ total and partial cross sections as a function of energy, and introduce new parton distribution functions for a wide range of hadrons, as required for a proper modelling of multiparton interactions. The potential usefulness of the framework is illustrated by a simple study of the evolution of cosmic rays in the atmosphere, and by an even simpler one of shower evolution in a solid detector material. The new code will be made available for future applications.