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SUMMARY:Probing High-Energy Photonuclear Interactions with Muons in Gamma-
 Ray Air Showers
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261030T160000Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261030T161500Z
DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261029T013725Z
UID:indico-contribution-6226@cern.ch
DESCRIPTION:Speakers: Nickolay Martynenko (Lomonosov MSU\, Faculty of Phys
 ics & Institute for Nuclear Research\, RAS)\nPhotonuclear interactions are
  the main source of high-energy muons in gamma-ray-induced extensive air s
 howers (EASs)\, while the corresponding cross section remains poorly const
 rained at energies relevant for astrophysical gamma rays. We develop an ef
 ficient framework for propagating uncertainties in the photonuclear cross 
 section to the muon content and photon-selection efficiency of EAS experim
 ents. We apply it to the Carpet-2 excess of events from the Cygnus region 
 above 300 TeV. Accounting for the source spectrum substantially changes th
 e expected photon detection efficiency\, while the remaining uncertainty o
 f the high-energy photonuclear cross section produces an additional sizeab
 le systematic effect. Their combination removes the apparent tension betwe
 en the observed excess and the number of muon-poor photon candidates. We a
 lso show that observations of gamma-ray sources with Carpet-2-like arrays 
 are sensitive to photonuclear interactions in an energy range that is only
  weakly constrained by laboratory measurements.\n\nThis work was supported
  by the Russian Science Foundation\, grant 25-12-00333. The speaker acknow
 ledges a PhD student fellowship from the Theoretical Physics and Mathemati
 cs Advancement Foundation “BASIS” under contract 24-2-10-39-1.\n\nhttp
 s://indico.particle.mephi.ru/event/626/contributions/6226/
LOCATION: Conference Hall 4
URL:https://indico.particle.mephi.ru/event/626/contributions/6226/
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