Extensive air shower simulations at the highest energies

Air shower simulation programs are essential tools for the analysis of data from cosmic ray experiments and for planning the layout of new detectors. They are used to estimate the energy and mass of the primary particle. Unfortunately the model uncertainties translate directly into systematic errors in the energy and mass determination. Aiming at energies > 10(19) eV, the models have to be extrapolated far beyond the energies available at accelerators. On the other hand, hybrid measurement of ground particle densities and calorimetric shower energy, as will be provided by the Pierre Auger Observatory, will strongly constrain shower models. While the main uncertainty of contemporary models comes from our poor knowledge of the (soft) hadronic interactions at high energies, also electromagnetic interactions, low-energy hadronic interactions and the particle transport influence details of the shower development. We review here the physics processes and some of the computational techniques of air shower models presently used for highest energies, and discuss the properties and limitations of the models. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.