Bose-Einstein condensation and muon production in ultra-high energy cosmic ray particle collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Bose-Einstein condensation of pions in ultra-high energy cosmic ray collisions could lead to increased muon production, providing a new perspective on particle behavior at extreme energies.

Contribution

It estimates the critical density for pion Bose-Einstein condensation and analyzes its potential impact on muon yields in cosmic ray interactions.

Findings

Critical pion density for Bose-Einstein condensation is estimated.

Presence of Bose-Einstein effects can enhance muon production.

Energy dependence of pion density is modeled with and without BEC effects.

Abstract

Collisions of cosmic ray particles with ultra-high initial energies with nuclei in the atmosphere open a wide room for appearing of the novel dynamical features for multiparticle production processes. In particular, the pion-lasing behavior driven by Bose-Einstein condensation would result in the shift to larger multiplicities and, as consequence, could provide, in general, the enhanced yield of cosmic muons. In the present work the critical value of the space charged particle density for onset of Bose-Einstein condensation of the boson (pion) wave-packets into the same wave-packet state is estimated within the model with complete multiparticle symmetrization for the energy domain corresponded to the ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR). Energy dependence of mean density of charged pions is evaluated for the cases of absent of the Bose-Einstein effects and for presence of laser-like behavior of pions. The possible influence of the Bose-Einstein condensation is discussed for the muon production in UHECR particle collisions with the atmosphere.