Triple-Pomeron Diffraction Peak as a Signature of UHE Proton-Initiated Spectra of Gammas and Neutrinos in Astrophysics

TL;DR

This paper links the triple-pomeron diffraction peak in proton collisions to features in astrophysical spectra, providing a model to estimate the maximum energy of cosmic protons based on collider data.

Contribution

It introduces a method to connect collider proton spectra features with astrophysical UHE particle spectra, estimating the maximum proton energy from spectral knee observations.

Findings

Identification of the triple-pomeron diffraction peak as a signature in astrophysical spectra.

Estimation of the maximum energy of initial protons at 6×10^{12} GeV.

Correlation between collider proton spectra features and cosmic ray spectrum structures.

Abstract

Production of ultra-high-energy (UHE) particles in astrophysics should not be different from the hadron production at the contemporary proton colliders. LHC experiments are providing us with the proton spectra at very high energy (VHE) that are measured in the center-of-mass system (c.m.s.). The proton spectrum in c.m.s. has two special features that are important at HE hadron collisions: the growing central-rapidity part with hadron-antihadron pair production and the valuable diffractive peak in the region of the leading proton due to the triple-pomeron term. The QCD phenomenological studies of previous years gave us the Quark-Gluon String Model for the calculations of baryon and meson production spectra in a full kinematical range of rapidities. The collider proton production spectrum was recalculated to the laboratory system of coordinates, which is natural for astrophysical observations. The specifics of collider distributions of protons are reflected in astrophysical spectra as the knee of cosmic proton spectrum and as the spectrum bulge at the UHE area in cosmic spectra of protons, neutrinos, and gamma-photons. They help us to conclude that the energy distribution of baryon production plays an important role in the production of UHE cosmic particles. The remarkable result of this approach is the estimation of maximal energy (Emax) of initial protons (and antiprotons) from the energy of knee in the proton spectrum that give us $E_{max} = 6*10^{12}$ GeV.