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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 58: Cosmic Rays III

T 58.2: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 2. April 2025, 16:30–16:45, VG 3.102

Inclined Air Showers with Corsika 8 and Pythia 8: Cracking the Muon Puzzle One Shower at a Time — •Chloé Gaudu for the CORSIKA8 collaboration — Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Gaußstraße 20, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany

The field of air shower physics seeks to understand the development of cosmic-ray interactions with the Earth’s atmosphere. A key challenge in this field is the discrepancy in the muon content of extensive air showers observed by cosmic-ray experiments, such as the Pierre Auger Observatory, compared to predictions from state-of-the-art hadronic interaction models. This discrepancy, commonly referred to as the Muon Puzzle, stems from limitations in modeling high-energy hadronic interactions. The Pythia 8 interaction model emerges as a promising candidate for shedding light on the Muon Puzzle, owing to its user-friendly tunability and recent advancements in the Angantyr module, which enhances its handling of nuclear interactions. With Pythia 8 now partially integrated into the Corsika 8 particle-shower simulation code, preliminary analyses of the muon content in air showers are feasible.

This work is a comparative analysis of inclined air showers induced by proton primaries at 10¹⁹ eV, using Corsika 8 with Pythia 8 and current state-of-the-art alternatives, focusing on how differences in hadronic interaction models are reflected in shower observables. The preliminary results offer valuable insights into how Pythia 8 can advance our understanding of the Muon Puzzle and point to directions for future developments. *Supported by DFG (SFB 1491)

Keywords: Muon Puzzle; hadronic interactions; Pythia 8; air showers; CORSIKA 8