The Strong Interaction at the Collider and Cosmic-Rays Frontiers

First data on inclusive particle production measured in proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are compared to predictions of various hadron-interaction Monte Carlos (qgsjet, epos and sibyll) used commonly in high-energy cosmic-ray physics. While reasonable overall agreement is found for some of the models, none of them reproduces consistently the $${\sqrt{s}}$$ evolution of all the measured observables. We discuss the implications of the new LHC data for the modeling of the non-perturbative and semihard parton dynamics in hadron–hadron and cosmic-rays interactions at the highest energies studied today.

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