Threshold meson production and cosmic ray transport

Abstract

An interesting accident of nature is that the peak of the cosmic ray spectrum, for both protons and heavier nuclei, occurs near the pion production threshold. The Boltzmann transport equation contains a term which is the cosmic ray flux multiplied by the cross section. Therefore when considering pion and kaon production from proton-proton reactions, small cross sections at low energy can be as important as larger cross sections at higher energy. This is also true for subthreshold kaon production in nuclear collisions, but not for subthreshold pion production.