Scaling violation and the inelasticity of very high energy proton–proton interactions

Abstract

The pseudorapidity measurements at LHC, although in the central region only, allows us to perform preliminary tests of the multiparticle production extrapolation formula inspired by the analysis of recent cosmic ray data. Feynman scaling violation in the form proposed originally by Wdowczyk and Wolfendale in the 1970s has been applied to the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Hi-Res group measurements. The consistency of the average extensive air shower development with the hypothesis of protons being the primary particles, as indicated by anisotropy observations, was found for a smooth rise of the scaling violation parameter. We have shown that the longitudinal momenta of the produced particles determined inclusively as rapidity (pseudorapidity) distributions measured by LHC experiments follow the same universal high energy distribution scaled respectively. The high degree of Feynman scaling violation is confirmed. The decrease of the very high energy interaction inelasticity suggested by the cosmic ray data analysis is found to be consistent with LHC measurements up to 7 TeV.