High Energy Muon Production in Cosmic Ray Air Showers

Over the past decade, data from ground-based cosmic ray air shower arrays such as Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array have consistently revealed a deficit in the number of muons predicted by air shower simulations compared to observations, at more than 8 standard deviations in combined statistical significance, leading to the so-called muon puzzle [3]. Resolving this puzzle remains a key challenge for accurate measurement of cosmic ray mass composition for indirect detection experiments, as well as for neutrino astronomy. We present a study of comparison of atmospheric lepton fux predictions from various hadronic interaction models [4–7].