High-energy photoproduction of jets

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Abstract
We examine recent claims that, because of jet production, the cross section for the hadronic component of the photon-proton collisions at very high energies becomes much larger than the standard cross section based on vector-dominance models. If this were so, then the interpretation of cosmicray air showers associated with point sources might be very different because photon-induced showers would not be as muon poor as has previously been assumed. We show that although inclusive jet cross sections do become large, the total cross section does not increase much. It is possible that the photon-gluon-fusion contribution will increase the cross section by a factor of 2 or so. Parton-saturation effects come into play and prevent the cross section from rising more.