Cosmic ray interactions in the atmosphere: QGSJET-III and other models

TL;DR

This paper discusses the QGSJET-III model for high energy cosmic ray interactions, compares it with other models, and analyzes differences in air shower simulations to identify model deficiencies.

Contribution

It introduces new theoretical approaches in QGSJET-III and provides a detailed comparison with alternative cosmic ray interaction models.

Findings

QGSJET-III incorporates novel theoretical methods.

Differences between models affect air shower characteristics.

Some models have significant deficiencies impacting results.

Abstract

The physics content of the QGSJET-III Monte Carlo generator of high energy hadronic collisions is discussed. New theoretical approaches implemented in QGSJET-III are addressed in some detail and a comparison to alternative treatments of other cosmic ray interaction models is performed. Calculated characteristics of cosmic ray-induced extensive air showers are presented and differences between the respective results of QGSJET-III and other models are analyzed. In particular, it is demonstrated that those differences are partly caused by severe deficiencies of the other interaction models.