Penetrating flavors

Technical Report · Tue Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1981

OSTI ID:5096550

McLerran, L; Stodolsky, L

Hadrons made of heavy flavor quarks are expected to have small cross sections and perhaps reduced energy loss in collisions, leading to their being more penetrating than ordinary hadrons. Some effects of this in cosmic ray phenomena are considered. If the heavy particle lives long enough it can become the dominant hadron component in the atmosphere. With particles of short lifetime there is a threshold effect in energy where the penetrating hadron travels far enough to become important. Some of the anomalous effects in 10/sup 2/ to 10/sup 3/ TeV phenomena could be caused via this mechanism by a particle with lifetime approx. 10/sup -11/ sec. An approx. 150 cm thick iron absorber would provide a substantial enhancement in the charm/proton ratio in the 10 to 100 TeV range. If free quarks are produced and have the same cross section as bound quarks, they act as highly penetrating hadrons.

• Research Organization: Washington Univ., Seattle (USA). Dept. of Physics; Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik und Astrophysik, Muenchen (Germany, F.R.)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-81ER40048
• OSTI ID: 5096550
• Report Number(s): DOE/ER/40048-13P2; MPI-PAE/PTH-77/81; ON: DE82020144
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

645201* -- High Energy Physics-- Particle Interactions & Properties-Theoretical-- General & Scattering Theory
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
COMPOSITE MODELS
COSMIC RADIATION
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ENERGY LOSSES
FLAVOR MODEL
HADRONS
IONIZING RADIATIONS
LOSSES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PARTICLE MODELS
POSTULATED PARTICLES
QUARK MODEL
QUARKS
RADIATIONS
RANGE