Space Time Fluctuations and Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions
Abstract
The intimate geometry of space-time is expected to suffer stochastic fluctuations as a result of quantum gravitational effects. These fluctuations may induce observable consequences on the propagation of high energy particles over large distances, so that the strength and the characteristics of these fluctuations may be constrained, mainly in the range of energies of interest for cosmic ray physics. While invoked as a possible explanation for the detection of the puzzling cosmic rays with energies in excess of the threshold for photopion production (the so-called super-GZK particles), we demonstrate here that lower energy observations may provide strong constraints on the role of a fluctuating space-time structure.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0205271,
title = {Space Time Fluctuations and Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions},
author = {R. Aloisio and P. Blasi and A. Galante and P. L. Ghia and A. F. Grillo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0205271},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
11 pages and 1 eps figure, references added, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics