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The Muon Puzzle in cosmic-ray induced air showers and its connection to the Large Hadron Collider

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arxiv 2105.06148 v2 pith:NSPQ2NC6 submitted 2021-05-13 astro-ph.HE hep-exhep-ph

classification astro-ph.HEhep-exhep-ph
keywords muoncompositionhadronpuzzleshowersbeencollidercosmic
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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High-energy cosmic rays are observed indirectly by detecting the extensive air showers initiated in Earth's atmosphere. The interpretation of these observations relies on accurate models of air shower physics, which is a challenge and an opportunity to test QCD under extreme conditions. Air showers are hadronic cascades, which eventually decay into muons. The muon number is a key observable to infer the mass composition of cosmic rays. Air shower simulations with state-of-the-art QCD models show a significant muon deficit with respect to measurements; this is called the Muon Puzzle. The origin of this discrepancy has been traced to the composition of secondary particles in hadronic interactions. The muon discrepancy starts at the TeV scale, which suggests that this change in hadron composition is observable at the Large Hadron Collider. An effect that can potentially explain the puzzle has been discovered at the LHC, but needs to be confirmed for forward produced hadrons with LHCb, and with future data on oxygen beams.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Proton-air interaction properties at $\sqrt{s} \simeq 100$ TeV from shower-depth measurements with the Pierre Auger Observatory and their connection to the Muon Puzzle

    hep-ex 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Using a universal relation found across hadronic interaction models, Auger's deeper-than-predicted shower maxima imply increased elasticity and hadronic energy fraction in proton–air collisions, needing 2.8–4.6× ampli...

  2. TAMBO: A Deep-Valley Neutrino Observatory

    astro-ph.HE 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A mountain-valley array of 5,000 particle detectors could detect Earth-skimming tau neutrinos in the PeV to EeV range with high cosmic purity and an aperture larger than IceCube's above 2 PeV.

  3. A New Method for Measuring the Pion-Air Cross Section at Multi-TeV Energies Using Muon Bundle Properties in Deep Underground Detectors

    astro-ph.HE 2025-07 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Simulations show that underground muon bundle counts could constrain the inelastic pion-air cross section to roughly 10-15% near 1-2 TeV.

  4. Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics at Colliders

    hep-ph 2025-06 unverdicted

    A review of collider neutrino experiments, covering first FASERv and SND@LHC measurements, FPF prospects for neutrino cross sections, new physics searches, and astrophysics applications.

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