An investigation on the interaction of high energy muons, associated with EAS and having energies greater than several hundred GeV, has been carried out at Kolar Gold Fields. A visual detector consisting of neon flash tube hodoscope has been used together with a scintillator detector to observe the muons and accompanying showers at the underground level.

It has been found that nearly 90% of the showers observed at the underground level are generated in course of pure electromagnetic interactions of the muons with the matter traversed by them. The observed number of the showers is found to be consistent with the expected number calculated using the cross-sections for knock-on, bremsstrahlung and direct pair production processes.

Rest of the observed showers do not appear to fit in the pure electromagnetic interaction scheme. Various possible production processes for these events have been discussed. Considering these events to be due to photonuclear interaction of muons in the rock, the observed number leads to a production cross-sectionσ_μ(≳25 GeV) ⋍(1.6±0.75)10⁻²⁹ cm²/nucl.

An experiment has been carried out at a vertical depth of 580 m.w.e. at Kolar Gold Fields, to investigate various characteristics of energetic muons (E_mln ⋍ 150 GeV) associated with extensive air showers (EAS). Double parallel penetrating particles with narrow separations (<1m) have an exponential decoherence distribution withe-folding separation of ⋍ 25 cm.