Heavy-Quark Hadroproduction from Collider to Astroparticle Physics

The discovery of heavy quarks and the investigation of their properties have been an integral part of collider physics programs over the last 40 years, continuously progressing with the growth of the available center-of-mass energy. These studies have provided increasing experimental evidence of the validity of the QCD theory, and added new information on the heavy-quark related parameters entering the Standard Model Lagrangean. In contrast, the exploration of the role of heavy-quark production and decay to energies beyond the reach of colliders and phase-space regions not accessible in current experiments, as needed for astrophysical applications, has received only limited attention. The Scientific Program fosters these investigations by promoting and intensifying the interaction and collaboration between particle physicists, experts in heavy-quark phenomenology at colliders, and astro-particle physicists, interested in describing the interactions of high-energy and ultra-high-energy cosmic rays in astrophysical environments like the Earth's atmosphere or distant galactic and extragalactic astrophysical cosmic ray sources.

One important aim of the Scientific Program is to identify and discuss in detail the regions of phase space in which astro-particle physicists are most interested, and to find and propose suitable theoretical frameworks for calculating heavy-quark hadroproduction in these regions, combining elements of perturbative and non-perturbative QCD. A second aim is to identify a set of experimental measurements at forthcoming runs of the Large Hadron Collider, which can help reduce the present uncertainties in the quantitative description of the formation of extended air showers and lepton fluxes in the atmosphere. Another aim is to explore and discuss whether astrophysical measurements can provide data capable of improving our knowledge of non-perturbative aspects of QCD, complementing constraints from collider measurements, in kinematical regions not covered by the latter.