Rising inelastic cross section and its contribution to steepening of the cosmic ray energy spectrum

Calculations have been carried out to investigate the contribution of an increasing total cross section to steepening of the cosmic ray energy spectrum at very high energies (E>approximately1012eV). Our results suggest that increasing total cross section contributes only a part to the steepening of primary energy spectrum at very high energies even if the composition is pure primary iron flux. (author)