Note on the Production of Cosmic-Ray Mesons

Abstract

It is pointed out that the cross sections for the production of mesons in collisions between heavy particles given by Hamilton, Heitler, and Peng are so large that a heavy particle crossing an atomic nucleus must be expected to collide several times inside the same nucleus. This hypothesis accounts for cloud-chamber observations showing the production of several mesons in one point. Anticoincidence experiments of J\'anossy and Rochester can also be interpreted easily by the theory of HHP when the occurrence of multiple collisions is assumed.