Hadronic Interactions and TeV Muons in Cosmic Ray Cascades

Abstract

In view of the interpretation of data collected by large, deep underground experiments in terms of primary Cosmic Ray physics, this work is focused on the study of the production of of TeV muons in Extensive Air Showers. The review tries to point out those features of hadronic interactions that mostly affect the production of the high energy muons. A few different Monte Carlo codes are compared, with a particular attention to those based on the Regge-Gribov framework. The possibility of performing experimental tests of the proposed models is also briefly discussed.

Comments: 22 pages, 7 figures, extended version of the contribution to appear in the proceedings of the Xth ISVHECRI, Lab. Naz. Gran Sasso, July 1998. Error in Eq.3 corrected