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The composition of cosmic rays according to the data on EAS cores

by S. B. Shaulov, V. A. Ryabov, S. E. Pyatovsky, A. L. Shepetov, V. V. Zhukov

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Submission summary

Authors (as registered SciPost users): Sergey Pyatovsky
Submission information
Preprint Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.12165v3  (pdf)
Date submitted: 2022-08-19 07:51
Submitted by: Pyatovsky, Sergey
Submitted to: SciPost Physics Proceedings
Proceedings issue: 21st International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI2022)
Ontological classification
Academic field: Physics
Specialties:
  • Gravitation, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
  • High-Energy Physics - Experiment
  • High-Energy Physics - Theory
Approaches: Theoretical, Experimental

Abstract

The main purpose of this work is to find the causes of the break of the cosmic ray spectrum at an energy of 3 PeV, which is called the knee. The solution of the problem is associated with the determination of the nuclear composition of cosmic rays in the knee area. The conclusions of this work are based on the analysis of the characteristics of the EAS cores obtained using X-ray emulsion chambers. According to these data, a number of anomalous effects are observed in the knee region, such as scaling violation in the spectra of secondary hadrons, an excess of muons in EAS with gamma families and others. At the same energies equivalent to 1-100 PeV the laboratory system colliders show scaling behavior. So analysis of the data on the EAS cores suggests that the knee in their spectrum is formed by a component of cosmic rays of a non-nuclear nature, possibly consisting of stable (quasi-stable) particles of hypothetical strange quark matter, which named strangelets. This is the only model of the knee compatible with the magnetic rigidity of the nuclear spectra break R = 100 TV. In fact, stranglets are stable heavy quasi-nuclei with a positive electric charge of Z = 30-1000, so the mechanism of their acceleration coincides with the nuclear one. The break of the cosmic ray spectrum can be associated with a significantly larger mass of strangelets compared to nuclei.

Current status:
Has been resubmitted

Reports on this Submission

Anonymous Report 1 on 2022-9-16 (Invited Report)

  • Cite as: Anonymous, Report on arXiv:2206.12165v3, delivered 2022-09-16, doi: 10.21468/SciPost.Report.5704

Strengths

1) This paper is based on the data of the HADRON experiment, that measured the hadronic EAS component together with electromagnetic and muonic ones.

Weaknesses

1) The main weakness of this paper is that the knee interpretation is based only on the 2006 Tibet-ASgamma results. Few data from other experiments are cited and only in preliminary and very old versions. No data published after 2006 are cited, while many important results about the knee of the cosmic spectrum have been published.
Therefore the model proposed doesn't take into account many other results that can change the hypothesis on which the paper is based.
2) The paper is difficult to read as many results are cited from other pubblications (one of those only in Russian). But I understand that this can be due to the fact that the paper is conference proceeding with a limit in the page number.

Report

This is interpretation of the knee is a very peculiar one based on hypothesis that ignore results from other experiment (i.e. ARGO, KASCADE, KASCADE-Grande, ICE-TOP).
The hypothesis of new cosmic ray stranglets components seems ad hoc for these results and it look strange that such component only shows its influence above the knee, not being visible at lower energies.
In my opinion such interpretation is not convincing and should be better explained (but maybe this is not possible in a short pubblication like a proceedings, if this is the case I invite the authors to submit a longer article to a journal).

Requested changes

I suggest few changes either of content or only in the wording.
- page 2 line 6. "....higher complicity". Maybe you can change "complicity" with a more appropriate one.
- page 2 line 9. "In the current message...." message --> contribution or paper
- Section 2 line 4. stifness --> rigidity
- Section 2 4th paragraph. Please check "equils"
- Section 2 5th paragraph. "figer 2" --> "figure 2"
- Section 2 end of 5th paragraph. Rp=0.1 PeV --> Rp=0.1 PV (I suppose)
- SIBILL --> the name of the model is SIBYLL
- page 3 1st paragraph. "Obviously, a more .....". To me is not obvious at all the analysis of Tibet-ASg is more reliable than the others. I would use either a less hard sentence or better justify this claim.
-page 3 end of 1st paragraph. "There is a "desert"". Again is not so clear to me why there is this "desert", there are other models that can explain the cosmic radiation above the knee. This is true in a peculiar data interpretation.
- page 3 First line of section 3. Is true that Tien Shan is at 3330 m a.s.l., I remember that it is above 5000 m. Please check.
-page 3 4th paragraph. In this paragraph (beginning with "Exceptional hardness...". Could you please try to explain more clearly why the "spectra reveal...... non scaling behaviour"-
- page 4 4th paragraph. "....means preferable origination...." please check this sentence, I think it can be written in a better way.
- page 4 last two lines. "....the following composition model". Is this model the one shown in figure 10 of reference 17? If yes I think that it can dicrectly adressed in this way in this line. If not I do not understand the sentence.

  • validity: low
  • significance: low
  • originality: ok
  • clarity: low
  • formatting: reasonable
  • grammar: below threshold

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