Related papers: Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays and Hilbertian Repulsiv…
We discuss the basic difficulties in understanding the origin of the highest energy particles in the Universe - the ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECR). It is difficult to imagine the sources they are accelerated in. Because of the strong…
The origin of cosmic rays with energies higher than 10$^{20}$ eV remains a mystery. Accelerating particles up to these energies is a challenge even for the most energetic astrophysical objects known. While the isotropy in arrival directions…
We give an outline of possible extragalactic explanations of the highest energy cosmic ray events. We give a classification of the possible particles which could have caused the events and try to find suitable sources for each class. In…
Contrary to expectations, several cosmic ray events with energies above $10^{20}$ eV have been observed. The flux of such events is well above the predicted Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff due to the pion production (via the $\Delta$…
We address some current theoretical issues around ultra-high energy cosmic rays. We recall that scenarios producing more gamma-rays than cosmic rays up to high redshift can in general only provide a sub-dominant contribution to the…
The highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely to be associated with the most energetic processes in the Universe. Their existence triggered a flurry of theoretical explanations ranging from…
We present an analytic solution to diffusion equation for high energy cosmic rays in the expanding universe. The particles are assumed to be ultra-relativistic and they can have energy losses arbitrarily dependent on energy and time. The…
We discuss recent models in which neutrinos, which are assumed to have mass in the eV range, originate the highest energy cosmic rays by interaction with the enhanced density in the galactic halo of the relic cosmic neutrino background. We…
The origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) with energies above E > 1017eV, is still unknown. The discovery of their sources will reveal the engines of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. This is a…
I give a brief review of high energy gamma-ray signatures of dark matter. The decay of massive $X$-particles and subsequent hadronization have been suggested as the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays. Propagation over cosmological…
The origin of cosmic rays from outside the Solar system are unknown, as they are deflected by the interstellar magnetic field. Supernova remnants are the main candidate for cosmic rays up to PeV energies but due to lack of evidence, they…
We briefly review sources of cosmic rays, their composition and spectra as well as their propagation in the galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields, both regular and fluctuating. A special attention is paid to the recent results of the…
Highly relativistic jets from merger and accretion induced collapse of compact stellar objects, which may produce the cosmological gamma ray bursts (GRBs), are also very efficient and powerful cosmic ray accelerators. The expected…
The total cosmic-ray luminosity of the Galaxy is an important constraint on models of cosmic-ray generation. The diffuse high energy $\gamma$-ray and radio-synchrotron emissions of the Milky Way are used to derive this luminosity. The…
Ultra high energy cosmic rays have been see coming from the direction of the local cosmic void. We use this fact to argue that at least some of these these cosmic rays are relatively light magnetic monopoles and that their relative fraction…
We explore scenarios where the highest energy cosmic rays (HECR) are produced by new particle physics near the grand unification scale. Using detailed numerical simulations of extragalactic cosmic and gamma-ray propagation, we show the…
We obtain the dipolar anisotropies in the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays diffusing from nearby extragalactic sources. We discuss both the energy regime of spatial diffusion and the quasi-rectilinear one leading to just…
We shortly discuss several astrophysical scenarios leading to cosmic ray acceleration up to extremely high energies reaching the scale of 10^{20} eV. The processes suggested in the literature include acceleration at relativistic jet…
Beside the rise of total cross sections or interaction radii of colliding high energetic particles and the shrinkage of mean-free-paths of ultra relativistic particles (nucleii) in material media (anomalons), which have been shown to be of…
In this chapter I give an overview of shock acceleration, including a discussion of the maximum energies possible and the shape of the spectrum near cut-off, interactions of high energy cosmic rays with, and propagation through, the…