@article{3168825,
    title = "Study of cosmic ray events with high muon multiplicity using the ALICE
detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider",
    author = "Adam, J. and Adamova, D. and Aggarwal, M. M. and Rinella, G. Aglieri and and Agnello, M. and Agrawal, N. and Ahammed, Z. and Ahn, S. U. and Aiola, S. and and Akindinov, A. and Alam, S. N. and Aleksandrov, D. and Alessandro, B. and and Alexandre, D. and Molina, R. Alfaro and Alici, A. and Alkin, A. and and Almaraz, J. R. M. and Alme, J. and Alt, T. and Altinpinar, S. and and Altsybeev, I. and Garcia Prado, C. Alves and Andrei, C. and Andronic, A. and and Anguelov, V. and Anielski, J. and Anticic, T. and Antinori, F. and and Antonioli, P. and Aphecetche, L. and Appelshaeuser, H. and Arcelli, S. and and Armesto, N. and Arnaldi, R. and Arsene, I. C. and Arslandok, M. and and Audurier, B. and Augustinus, A. and Averbeck, R. and Azmi, M. D. and and Bach, M. and Badala, A. and Baek, Y. W. and Bagnasco, S. and Bailhache, and R. and Bala, R. and Baldisseri, A. and Baltasar Dos Santos Pedrosa, F. and and Baral, R. C. and Barbano, A. M. and Barbera, R. and Barile, F. and and Barnafoeldi, G. G. and Barnby, L. S. and Barret, V. and Bartalini, P. and and Barth, K. and Bartke, J. and Bartsch, E. and Basile, M. and Bastid, and N. and Basu, S. and Bathen, B. and Batigne, G. and Camejo, A. Batista and and Batyunya, B. and Batzing, P. C. and Bearden, I. G. and Beck, H. and and Bedda, C. and Belikov, I. and Bellini, F. and Bello Martinez, H. and and Bellwied, R. and Belmont, R. and Belmont-Moreno, E. and Belyaev, V. and and Bencedi, G. and Beole, S. and Berceanu, I. and Bercuci, A. and and Berdnikov, Y. and Berenyi, D. and Bertens, R. A. and Berzano, D. and and Betev, L. and Bhasin, A. and Bhat, I. R. and Bhati, A. K. and and Bhattacharjee, B. and Bhom, J. and Bianchi, L. and Bianchi, N. and and Bianchin, C. and Bielcik, J. and Bielcikova, J. and Bilandzic, A. and and Biswas, R. and Biswas, S. and Bjelogrlic, S. and Blair, J. 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C. and Zaporozhets, S. and and Zardoshti, N. and Zarochentsev, A. and Zavada, P. and Zaviyalov and and Zbroszczyk, H. and Zgura, I. S. and Zhalov, M. and Zhang, H. and Zhang, and X. and Zhang, Y. and Zhang, Z. and Zhao, C. and Zhigareva, N. and Zhou, and D. and Zhou, Y. and Zhou, Z. and Zhu, H. and Zhu, J. and Zichichi, A. and and Zimmermann, A. and Zimmermann, M. B. and Zinovjev, G. and Zyzak, M. and and ALICE Collaboration",
    journal = "Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics",
    year = "2016",
    number = "1",
    publisher = "IOP Publishing Ltd",
    issn = "1475-7516",
    doi = "10.1088/1475-7516/2016/01/032",
    keywords = "cosmic ray experiments; cosmic rays detectors",
    abstract = "ALICE is one of four large experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
near Geneva, specially designed to study particle production in
ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Located 52 meters underground
with 28 meters of overburden rock, it has also been used to detect muons
produced by cosmic ray interactions in the upper atmosphere. In this
paper, we present the multiplicity distribution of these atmospheric
muons and its comparison with Monte Carlo simulations. This analysis
exploits the large size and excellent tracking capability of the ALICE
Time Projection Chamber. A special emphasis is given to the study of
high multiplicity events containing more than 100 reconstructed muons
and corresponding to a muon areal density rho(mu) > 5.9 m(-2). Similar
events have been studied in previous underground experiments such as
ALEPH and DELPHI at LEP. While these experiments were able to reproduce
the measured muon multiplicity distribution with Monte Carlo simulations
at low and intermediate multiplicities, their simulations failed to
describe the frequency of the highest multiplicity events. In this work
we show that the high multiplicity events observed in ALICE stem from
primary cosmic rays with energies above 10(16) eV and that the frequency
of these events can be successfully described by assuming a heavy mass
composition of primary cosmic rays in this energy range. The development
of the resulting air showers was simulated using the latest version of
QGSJET to model hadronic interactions. This observation places
significant constraints on alternative, more exotic, production
mechanisms for these events."
}