Cgs. Costa et al., PARTICLE-PRODUCTION IN VERY-HIGH-ENERGY COSMIC-RAY EMULSION CHAMBER EVENTS - USUAL AND UNUSUAL EVENTS, Physical review. D. Particles and fields, 52(7), 1995, pp. 3890-3893
We show that a simple scaling model of very forward particle productio
n, consistent with accelerator and air shower data, can describe the o
verall features of the very-high-energy interactions recorded with emu
lsion chambers. The rapidity and transverse momentum distribution of t
he secondaries are quantitatively reproduced. This is somewhat surpris
ing after numerous claims that the same data implied large scaling vio
lations or new dynamics. Interestingly, we cannot describe some of the
Centauro events, suggesting that these events are anomalous independe
ntly of their well-advertised unusual features such as the absence of
neutral secondaries.