Penetrating flavors

Hadrons made of heavy flavor quarks are expected to have small cross sections and perhaps reduced energy loss in collisions, leading to their being more “penetrating” than ordinary hadrons. Some effects of this in cosmic ray phenomena are considered. If the heavy particle lives long enough it can become the dominant hadron component in the atmosphere. With particles of short lifetime there is a threshold effect in energy where the penetrating hadron travels far enough to become important. Some of the anomalous effects in 10² – 10³ TeV phenomena could be caused via this mechanism by a particle with lifetime ～ 10^?11 s. An ～ 150 cm thick iron absorber would provide a substantial enhancement in the charm/proton ratio in the 10–100 TeV range. If free quarks are produced and have the same cross section as bound quarks, they act as highly penetrating hadrons.