On the total cross section extrapolations to cosmic-ray energies

Abstract

We analyze $pp$ total cross section data from accelerator to cosmic-ray energies and show that the experimental information presently available indicate two different scenarios at the highest energies. One of them accommodates the predictions of the majority of models and the other one shows agreement with a multiple diffraction model recently developed and improved. We argue that these results may bring a kind of warning against some possible precipitated attempts to constraint cosmic-ray estimations from analyzes of accelerator data.