Uncertainty in mean $X_{\rm max}$ from diffractive dissociation estimated using measurements of accelerator experiments

Abstract

Mass composition is important for understanding the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. However, interpretation of mass composition from air shower experiments is challenging, owing to significant uncertainty in hadronic interaction models adopted in air shower simulation. A particular source of uncertainty is diffractive dissociation, as its measurements in accelerator experiments demonstrated significant systematic uncertainty. In this research, we estimate the uncertainty in \langle X_{max}\rangle 〈Xmax⟩ from the uncertainty of the measurement of diffractive dissociation by the ALICE experiment. The maximum uncertainty size of the entire air shower was estimated to be ^{+4.0}_{-5.6} \mathrm{g/cm^2} −5.6+4.0g/cm2 for air showers induced by 10^{17} 1017 ~eV proton, which is not negligible in the uncertainty of \langle X_{max}\rangle 〈Xmax⟩ predictions.