Related papers: Hadron-gamma discrimination from an orbital UHECR …
In the past few years, cosmic-rays beyond the GZK cut-off ($E > 5 \times 10^{19}$ eV) have been detected by leading collaborations such as Pierre Auger Observatory. Such observations raise many questions as to how such energies can be…
The Pierre Auger Observatory has been detecting ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) for more than fifteen years. An essential feature of the Observatory is its hybrid design: cosmic rays above $100~$PeV are detected through the…
We describe a new approach to establishing the mass composition at high energies. Based on measuring both the vertical and inclined shower rates, it has the potential to distinguish heavy nuclei from light nuclei. We apply the method to…
Very-high energy (GeV-TeV) gamma rays in the universe suggest the presence of an accelerator in the source. Neutrinos and gamma rays are intriguing astrophysical messengers. Multi-messenger particle emission produced by interactions of…
Ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) protons produced by uniformly distributed astrophysical sources contradict the energy spectrum measured by both the AGASA and HiRes experiments, assuming the small scale clustering of UHECR observed by…
One of the most challenging open questions regarding the origin of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) deals with the shape of the source emission spectra. A commonly-used simplifying assumption is that the source spectra of the highest…
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR), of energy >10 EeV, arrive at the Earth regularly, but their sources, acceleration mechanisms, details of propagation through the universe, and particle composition remain mysteries. In addition, their…
The existence of cosmic ray particles up to the ultra-high energy limit (> 10^20 eV) is now beyond any doubt. The detection of cosmic particles with such energies imposes a challenge for the comprehension of their sources and nature. On one…
High-energy cosmic rays are observed indirectly by detecting the extensive air showers initiated in Earth's atmosphere. The interpretation of these observations relies on accurate models of air shower physics, which is a challenge and an…
The origin of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays is a 60-year old mystery. We show that with more events at the highest energies (above 150~EeV) it may be possible to limit the character of the sources and learn about the intervening magnetic…
High-energy neutrino flares are interesting prospective counterparts to photon flares, as their detection would guarantee the presence of accelerated hadrons within a source, provide precious information about cosmic-ray acceleration and…
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…
Since astrophysical neutrinos are produced in the interactions of cosmic rays, identifying the origin of cosmic rays using directional correlations with neutrinos is one of the most interesting possibilities of the field. For that purpose,…
Hadronic cosmic particles (cosmic rays) and gamma rays are constantly absorbed in the Earth's atmosphere and result in air showers of secondary particles. Cherenkov radiation from these atmospheric events is used to measure cosmic gamma…
In many models, the sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are assumed to accelerate particles to the same maximum energy. Motivated by the fact that candidate astrophysical accelerators exhibit a vast diversity in terms of their…
Knowledge of the distant high-energy universe comes from photons, ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), high-energy neutrinos, and gravitational waves. The theory of high-energy messengers reviewed here focuses on the extragalactic…
In this work we argue that, in the interpretation of the energy dependence of the depth of the shower maximum and of the muon content in high energy cosmic ray showers ($E > 10^{17}$ eV), other variables besides the composition may play an…
The origins and acceleration mechanisms of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are unknown. Many models attribute their extreme energies to powerful astrophysical jets. Understanding whether jet geometry -- specifically the opening angle…
The significant attenuation of the cosmic-ray flux above $\sim 5 10^{19}$ eV suggests that the observed high-energy spectrum is shaped by the so-called GZK effect. This interaction of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with the ambient…
The current status of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) is reviewed, with emphasis given to theoretical interpretation of the observed events. The galactic and extragalactic origin, in case of astrophysical sources of UHE particles,…