Extending the frontiers: Reconciling accelerator and cosmic ray p-p cross sections - art. no. 077501

We simultaneously fit a QCD-inspired parametrization of all accelerator dat a on forward proton-proton and antiproton-proton scattering amplitudes, tog ether with cosmic ray data (using Glauber theory), to predict proton-air an d proton-proton cross sections at energies near root s approximate to 30 Te V. The p-air cosmic ray measurements provide a strong constraint on the inc lusive particle production cross section, as well as greatly reducing the e rrors on the fit parameters-in turn, greatly reducing the errors in the hig h-energy proton-proton and proton-air cross section predictions.