CORSIKA implementation of heavy quark production and propagation in extensive air showers.

Heavy quarks are commonly produced in current accelerator experiments. Hence it is natural to think that they should be likewise created in collisions with larger center of mass energies like the ones involving ultra-high energy cosmic rays and atmospheric nuclei. Despite this fact, a detailed treatment of heavy hadrons is missing in Monte Carlo generators of Extensive Air Showers (EAS). It is a must to improve the description of how heavy flavors appear and evolve in atmospheric showers. With this goal in mind, we study two different models for heavy quark production in proton–air collisions. We also analyze a dedicated treatment of heavy hadrons interactions with atmospheric nuclei. This paper shows how those models have been implemented as new options available in CORSIKA, one of the most used EAS simulators. This new computational tool allows us to analyze the effects that the propagation of heavy hadrons has in the EAS development.