New facts about muon production in Extended Air Shower simulations

Whereas air shower simulations are very valuable tools for interpreting cosmic ray data, there is a long standing problem: is seems to be impossible to accommodate at the same time the longitudinal development of air showers and the number of muons measured at ground. Using a new hadronic interaction model (EPOS) in air shower simulations produces considerably more muons, in agreement with results from the HiRes-MIA experiment. We find that this is mainly due to a better description of baryon-antibaryon production in hadronic interactions. This is a new aspect of air shower physics which has never been considered so far.