Air Shower Properties with the Gluon Saturation Model BBL

Abstract

The hadronic interaction model BBL implements the ideas of gluon saturation due to large densities. When approaching the black body limit at high energies, leading partons acquire large transverse momenta which breaks up their coherence. This leads to a suppression of forward scattering, and is therefore important for air showers. We discuss some general aspects of this new approach and their influence on air shower properties as seen by fluorescence and surface detectors: The position of the shower maximum is reduced due to stronger absorption in the atmosphere. The lateral distribution functions become flatter for the same reason. Muons are produced abundantly due to high multiplicities in the mid-rapidity region. The response of water Cherenkov detectors and comparisons to other interaction models are shown.