Determination of nucleon-nucleon total cross-section at 2-40 TeV from cosmic ray investigations

Cosmic ray experiments with high energy particles are often used for checking of asymtotic behaviour of strong interaction models. In this paper it is considered the possibility of such checking on the base of experimental data on inelastic interactions of the cosmic ray protons with nuclei of air received at the Tien-Shan EAS complex. The extraction of the nucleon-nucleon total cross section at high energies from these data is also discussed. (author)