English

Hard component of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and vortons

Astrophysics 2009-10-31 v2

Abstract

Observed events of ultra-high energy cosmic rays may indicate a hard component for the energy spectrum of their flux, which might have origin in the decay of long-lived vortons presumably condensed in the galactic halo. To be consistent with the needed present density, vortons may have been formed during the breaking of an abelian symmetry contained in a large GUT group like E6 and a part of them could have survived the destabilization caused by the electroweak transition.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0005593,
  title  = {Hard component of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and vortons},
  author = {Luis Masperi and Milva Orsaria},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0005593},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

accepted version to appear in Astroparticle Physics. 24 pages, 3 figures. Enlarged discussion on vortons formation and GUT models