Large Scale Air Shower Simulations and the Search for New Physics at AUGER

Abstract

Large scale airshower simulations around the GZK cutoff are performed. An extensive analysis of the behaviour of the various subcomponents of the cascade is presented. We focus our investigation both on the study of total and partial multiplicities along the entire atmosphere and on the geometrical structure of the various cascades, in particular on the lateral distributions. The possibility of detecting new physics in Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) at AUGER is also investigated. We try to disentangle effects due to standard statistical fluctuations in the first proton impact in the shower formation from the underlying interaction and comment on these points. We argue that theoretical models predicting large missing energy may have a chance to be identified, once the calibration errors in the energy measurements are resolved by the experimental collaborations, in measurements of inclusive multiplicities.