Large-P T physics with cosmic-ray events

Extensive Air Shower (EAS) experiments with high granularity have reported the detection of multicore events. On the other hand, multicluster and double-core events have been observed with emulsion chambers (EC) at mountain altitudes since the late '70s. A striking characteristic of these events is the large transverse momentum of the clusters. At accelerator energy region, it is known that jet production in deep inelastic hadronic processes is associated with the emission of large-P T particles. In this paper we analyse the possibility that both EAS and EC events represent the same physical process, discussing the physical consequences of this fact and the possibilities offered by both techniques in integrating the accelerators data. © 1995 Società Italiana di Fisica.