MCEq - Probing Hadronic Interaction Models with Seasonal Variations

by Dr Stefan Fröse

Thursday 11 Jun 2026, 16:00 → 17:00 Europe/Berlin

CP-03-123 (TU Dortmund)

Modeling atmospheric lepton fluxes in cosmic ray cascades relies on our phenomenological understanding of hadronic interactions. While today's hadronic interaction models are tuned against collider data, the cosmic-ray-induced interactions occur in forward kinematic regions inaccessible to collider experiments. In this talk, I present MCEq2, a new generation of the Matrix Cascade Equations solver capable of computing multiple cosmic-ray arrival directions and atmospheric profiles simultaneously while being significantly faster than its predecessor. Building on this performance, I show how seasonal variations of the underground muon flux can be turned into a channel for constraining hadronic interaction models, providing an air-shower complement to collider data.