High transverse momentum secondaries in cosmic ray interactions up to 10/sup 7/ GeV

Recent observation of secondary pi /sup 0,/s from cosmic ray interactions with primary energy (E) between 10/sup 4/ and 10/sup 7/ GeV confirm the recent discovery in FNAL and CERN ISR experiments of a component of the proton-proton interaction, growing with energy, yielding an unexpected number of high transverse momentum (p/sub T/) secondaries. That the underlying dynamics is very different from the component of hadron interactions yielding the bulk of small p/sub T/ pions is confirmed by cosmic ray experiments in the observed invariant mass, multiplicity, and most strikingly in the p/sub T/ distribution of the secondaries. Furthermore a comparison of the measurements with accelerator data supports the validity up to 10/sup 7/ GeV of scaling laws in the variable x/sub T/=2p/sub T// square root s( square root s approximately=2mE) suggested by constituent models of hadrons. (10 refs).