# The Puzzle of Muons in Extensive Air Showers

## TL;DR

This study uses detailed simulations to investigate the muon excess in extensive air showers, finding that current hadronic interaction models largely explain the observations without needing exotic particles like strangelets.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive simulation analysis of muon production in air showers, highlighting the importance of hadronic interaction models and ruling out strangelets as a primary source.

## Key findings

- Simulations align with observed muon excess for ordinary nuclei.
- Strangelets are unlikely to be the primary cause of muon excess.
- Hadronic interaction details significantly influence shower observables.

## Abstract

In order to examine a muon excess observed by the Pierre Auger Observatory, detailed Monte Carlo simulations were carried out for primary protons, iron nuclei and strangelets (hypothetical stable lumps of strange quark matter). We obtained a rough agreement between the simulations and the data for ordinary nuclei without any contribution of strangelets in primary flux of cosmic rays. Our simulations suggest that the shower observables are dominated by details of hadronic interaction models.