Proton-proton cross section ats∼30TeV

There are both theoretical and experimental uncertainties in using data from cosmic-ray air showers to estimate hadronic cross sections above accelerator energies. We outline these problems and compare the physics used to extract ${\sigma }_{\mathrm{pp}}^{\mathrm{tot}}$ from air shower data to the widely used parametrization of the proton-proton cross section of Donnachie and Landshoff and other contemporary models. We conclude that the published cosmic-ray cross section values do not strongly constrain ${\sigma }_{\mathrm{pp}}^{\mathrm{tot}}$ fits from lower energy accelerator data.