Recent results from the cosmic ray program of the NA61/SHINE experiment

NA61/SHINE is a fixed target experiment designed to study hadron-proton, hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus interactions at the CERN Super-Proton-Synchrotron. In this paper we summarize the results from pion-carbon collisions recorded at beam momenta of 158 and 350 GeV/c. Hadron production measurements in this type of interactions is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the muon production in extensive air showers. In particular, production of (anti)baryons and ${\rho }^0$ are mechanisms responsible for increasing the number of muons which reaches the ground. The underestimation of the (anti)baryons or ${\rho }^0$ production rates in current hadronic interaction models could be one of the sources of the excess of muons observed by cosmic ray experiments. The results on the production spectra of ${\pi }^{\pm }$, K${}^{\pm }$, p, $\bar{\text{p}}$, $\mathrm{\Lambda }$, $\bar{\mathrm{\Lambda }}$, K${}_{\text{S}}^0$, ${\rho }^0$, $\omega$ and K${}^{0\ast }$ are presented, as well as their comparison to predictions of hadronic interaction models currently used in air shower simulations.