Hadronic component of high-energy cosmic rays and growth of inelastic cross sections

Measured nucleon-nucleus inelastic cross sections at superhigh energies are discussed. The atmospheric hadronic cascade model is treated, which takes into account the logarithmic growth with energy of inelastic cross sections and pion, kaon and nucleon production in pion-nucleus collisions. It is shown that including of πA→KX reactions essentially affects the K/π ratio at muon and neutrino effective production altitudes. The calculation results well agree with the experimental data on the hadronic component of cosmic rays at E>or approx, 1 TeV