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arxiv: 2605.04150 · v1 · submitted 2026-05-05 · ✦ hep-ph · astro-ph.HE· hep-ex

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Proton-Proton to Antinucleon Cross Sections for Cosmic Ray Applications

Andrea Signori, Emanuele R. Nocera, Fiorenza Donato, Jennifer Rittenhouse West, Mariaelena Boglione, Mattia Di Mauro

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Pith reviewed 2026-05-08 18:01 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification ✦ hep-ph astro-ph.HEhep-ex
keywords antiproton productionantineutron productionproton-proton collisionscosmic raysQCD collinear factorizationNA49 experimentparton distribution functionsfragmentation functions
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The pith

QCD calculations predict only a mild excess of antineutrons over antiprotons in proton-proton collisions, unlike the large excess claimed by NA49.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

This paper computes next-to-leading order predictions for antiproton and antineutron production cross sections in proton-proton collisions using collinear factorization in QCD. These are applied to cosmic ray interactions with interstellar matter to model secondary antinucleon production. The work compares these predictions to measurements from NA49 and ALICE experiments and finds that they do not support the reported 30% excess of antineutrons. Instead, the calculations indicate a small excess of a few percent, with uncertainties from parton distributions and fragmentation functions assessed. Accurate cross sections are important for interpreting cosmic ray data that could reveal astrophysical phenomena or new physics signals.

Core claim

Using collinear factorization at next-to-leading order in QCD, the authors derive predictions for inclusive antiproton and antineutron cross sections. These do not support the NA49 experiment's preliminary finding of a ~30% excess of antineutrons over antiprotons. The results instead point to a mild excess of a few percent. The NA49 result could be reconciled only by invoking sizeable differences in the poorly constrained small transverse momentum region.

What carries the argument

Collinear factorization in perturbative QCD at next-to-leading order, employing parton distribution functions and fragmentation functions to calculate antinucleon production cross sections.

If this is right

  • The predictions serve as inputs for calculating secondary antiproton fluxes in cosmic rays.
  • Collider data from experiments like NA49 and ALICE are assessed for their applicability to cosmic ray kinematics.
  • Characterized uncertainties allow for more reliable modeling of antinucleon production.
  • A small excess of antineutrons is expected rather than a large one, affecting ratio measurements in cosmic rays.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • If the mild excess holds, it would lower the expected background in searches for dark matter annihilation signals in cosmic antiprotons.
  • Improved measurements at low transverse momenta could test the need for adjustments in the fragmentation functions.
  • Extending the calculations to include nuclear effects could further refine applications to cosmic ray propagation in the galaxy.

Load-bearing premise

Collinear factorization remains valid and the input parton distribution and fragmentation functions are sufficiently accurate in the kinematic regions relevant to cosmic rays, especially at small transverse momenta.

What would settle it

A measurement of the antineutron-to-antiproton ratio in proton-proton collisions at small transverse momenta that confirms the ~30% excess reported by NA49 would falsify the paper's conclusion of only a mild excess.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2605.04150 by Andrea Signori, Emanuele R. Nocera, Fiorenza Donato, Jennifer Rittenhouse West, Mariaelena Boglione, Mattia Di Mauro.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: The percentage fraction of the cross section, Eq. (2), defined as the ratio between the contribution to the cross section of a partonic species and the total cross section. The gluon fragmentation channel (g → p¯) is indicated with a dashed blue line. The contribution to the cross section from the fragmentation of all active quarks (q → p¯) is indicated with a solid red line. Results are displayed as a fun… view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: Fixed-target NA49 (left) and collider ALICE (right) phase space, in the (xF , pT ) plane, compared to contours of fixed kinetic energy Tlab (Eqs. (8)). For ALICE, the range in xF is obtained by inverting Eq. (5) and evaluating it for y = ±0.5. where v is the relative velocity of the two frames, Ebeam is the energy of the incident beam, and mp is the mass of the proton target. We therefore obtain Tlab = γ r… view at source ↗
Figure 3
Figure 3. Figure 3: (Left) Comparison of our theoretical predictions, computed as explained in Sect. 2.1, to the NA49 experimental measurements of [31]. We separately indicate the FF, PDF, and scale uncertainties on theoretical predictions. The FF (PDF) uncertainty corresponds to the 68% confidence level computed over the FF (PDF) Monte Carlo ensemble of replicas provided by the nominal NNFF (NNPDF) parton sets, keeping the P… view at source ↗
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: The Lorentz-invariant cross section, Eq. (2), for the inclusive production of antiprotons (left) and of antineutrons (right), reconstructed across the entire range of pT according to the procedure described in the text. For antiprotons, we also display the NA49 measurements of [31]. dσ/dxF |xF =0 (pp → pX¯ ) [µbarn] 0.462+0.029 −0.007 (pdf) +0.256 −0.219 (ff) +1.171 −0.342 (th) +0.002 −0.053 (model) = 0.46… view at source ↗
Figure 5
Figure 5. Figure 5: The reconstructed antiproton inclusive production cross section from view at source ↗
Figure 6
Figure 6. Figure 6: Comparison between the antiproton ALICE measurements [34] included in the NPC23 analy￾sis [52], and the theoretical postdictions, computed as detailed in Sect. 2.1, using consistently their PDFs and FFs, CT24nlo [59] and NPC23 [52]. Theoretical predictions, obtained with our default non-perturbative input parton sets, NNPDF4.0 [46] for PDFs and NNFF1.0 [47] for FFs are also shown. The measurements correspo… view at source ↗
Figure 7
Figure 7. Figure 7: Comparison of theoretical predictions, computed as described in Sect. 2.1, for the inclusive production cross section of negatively and positively charged pions in pp collisions to the corresponding measurements reported by NA49 in [54]. Measurements correspond to a centre-of-mass energy of 17.2 GeV and are differential in the transverse momentum of the detected pion, pT , for fixed values of xF . We displ… view at source ↗
read the original abstract

We present predictions of inclusive antiproton and antineutron production cross sections in proton-proton collisions relevant to primary and secondary antiproton production in cosmic ray interactions with interstellar matter. Our predictions are based on collinear factorisation in Quantum Chromodynamics and are accurate to next-to-leading order in the perturbative expansion of the strong coupling. We assess the relevance of cross sections measured at collider experiments, such as NA49 at the CERN SPS and ALICE at the LHC, to the kinetic energy ranges accessed by cosmic ray detectors. We characterise the associated uncertainties due to the input parton distribution and fragmentation functions, and to missing higher orders. We critically examine the ~30% excess of antineutron over antiproton production in proton-proton collisions preliminarily reported by the NA49 experiment by combining our predictions with a data-driven model. Our results do not support the NA49 finding, and point to a mild excess of a few percent. We finally show that the NA49 result could only be reconciled with our framework by invoking sizeable differences between antiproton and antineutron production in the poorly constrained region of small transverse momenta of the produced hadron.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

1 major / 2 minor

Summary. The manuscript presents next-to-leading-order predictions in collinear QCD factorization for inclusive antiproton and antineutron production cross sections in proton-proton collisions, with applications to cosmic-ray secondary production. It quantifies uncertainties from PDFs, fragmentation functions, and missing higher orders, assesses the relevance of NA49 and ALICE collider data to cosmic-ray kinematics, and critically compares against the preliminary NA49 report of a ~30% antineutron excess, concluding that the framework yields only a mild few-percent excess and that reconciliation with NA49 would require large differences at small transverse momenta.

Significance. If the central results hold, the work supplies improved, uncertainty-quantified inputs for modeling antiproton fluxes in cosmic rays, helping to clarify whether observed excesses arise from astrophysics or hadronic production. The explicit treatment of PDF/FF uncertainties and the data-driven reconciliation model constitute a useful bridge between collider measurements and astrophysical applications.

major comments (1)
  1. [Abstract] Abstract: the claim that the results 'do not support the NA49 finding' and indicate only a 'mild excess of a few percent' is load-bearing for the paper's main conclusion, yet it rests on the assumption that NLO collinear factorization plus existing PDFs/FFs remain reliable in the small-pT region that dominates both the NA49 data and the cosmic-ray kinematics. The abstract itself states that reconciliation would require 'sizeable differences ... in the poorly constrained region of small transverse momenta,' creating a circularity risk that needs explicit sensitivity tests or alternative low-pT modeling to substantiate.
minor comments (2)
  1. [Abstract] The abstract and introduction would benefit from a concise statement of the precise kinematic cuts (e.g., minimum pT or x ranges) adopted for the cosmic-ray-relevant predictions.
  2. Clarify in the text how the 'data-driven model' for reconciling NA49 is constructed and whether it introduces additional free parameters beyond the standard PDFs and FFs.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

1 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the careful reading of our manuscript and for highlighting an important point regarding the assumptions in our abstract and conclusions. We address this comment below and outline revisions to strengthen the discussion of low-pT reliability.

read point-by-point responses
  1. Referee: [Abstract] Abstract: the claim that the results 'do not support the NA49 finding' and indicate only a 'mild excess of a few percent' is load-bearing for the paper's main conclusion, yet it rests on the assumption that NLO collinear factorization plus existing PDFs/FFs remain reliable in the small-pT region that dominates both the NA49 data and the cosmic-ray kinematics. The abstract itself states that reconciliation would require 'sizeable differences ... in the poorly constrained region of small transverse momenta,' creating a circularity risk that needs explicit sensitivity tests or alternative low-pT modeling to substantiate.

    Authors: We agree that the reliability of NLO collinear factorization at small transverse momenta is a key assumption, given its dominance in both the NA49 kinematics and cosmic-ray applications. Our analysis is performed entirely within this framework, with uncertainties from PDFs, FFs, and scale variations already quantified and shown to be insufficient to accommodate a 30% excess. The abstract statement is not circular: it demonstrates that, under standard perturbative QCD inputs, only a mild excess arises, and any reconciliation with NA49 would necessitate non-standard differences precisely in the low-pT region where the framework is least constrained. This highlights a limitation rather than assuming perfect validity. To address the concern directly, we will add explicit sensitivity tests (varying the pT cutoff and factorization/renormalization scales in the low-pT regime) and a short discussion of alternative low-pT approaches (e.g., phenomenological adjustments or Regge-inspired models). These will be incorporated in the revised manuscript. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity: predictions derived from standard NLO collinear factorization with external inputs

full rationale

The paper computes inclusive antinucleon cross sections at NLO in QCD using collinear factorization, input PDFs and FFs taken from prior literature, and a separate data-driven model only for post-hoc reconciliation with NA49. The central claim (mild few-percent excess, not supporting NA49's ~30%) follows directly from comparing these independent predictions to the data; the predictions are not fitted to NA49 and do not reduce to the target result by construction. The abstract's note that reconciliation would require differences in the small-pT region is an explicit acknowledgment of framework limitations rather than a self-justifying loop. No self-citations, ansatze, or uniqueness theorems from the authors are invoked as load-bearing steps in the derivation chain. Without equations or sections in the provided text that exhibit reduction of outputs to the paper's own fitted quantities or self-referential definitions, the derivation remains self-contained against external benchmarks.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

2 free parameters · 2 axioms · 0 invented entities

The central predictions rest on standard QCD tools and externally fitted functions; no new particles or forces are introduced.

free parameters (2)
  • Parton distribution functions
    Input PDFs taken from global fits to prior data; their uncertainties are propagated.
  • Fragmentation functions
    FFs for antiproton and antineutron production taken from global fits; uncertainties propagated.
axioms (2)
  • domain assumption Collinear factorization holds for the inclusive production process
    Invoked to separate the hard scattering from parton distributions and fragmentation.
  • standard math Perturbative QCD expansion is valid at next-to-leading order
    Used to compute the hard-scattering coefficients.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5532 in / 1461 out tokens · 73805 ms · 2026-05-08T18:01:34.372668+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

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Lean theorems connected to this paper

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Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

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