Related papers: Disappointing model for ultrahigh-energy cosmic ra…
More than 100 years after the discovery of cosmic rays and various experimental efforts, the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (E > 100 PeV) remains unclear. The understanding of production and propagation effects of these highest…
It is proposed that the highest energy $\sim 10^{20}$eV cosmic ray primaries are protons, decay products of a long-lived progenitor which has propagated from typically $\sim 100$Mpc. Such a scenario can occur in e.g. SU(15) grand…
The cosmic ray spectrum has been shown to extend well beyond 10^20 eV. With nearly 20 events observed in the last 40 years, it is now established that particles are accelerated or produced in the universe with energy near 10^21 eV. In all…
Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays, UHECR, are charged particles with energies between $\sim10^{18}\,{\rm eV}$ and $\sim3\times10^{20}\,{\rm eV}\sim50\,{\rm J}$. They exhibit fundamental physics at energies inaccessible to terrestrial…
It is shown that our knowledge of the mass composition of cosmic rays is deficient at all energies above 10^17 eV. Systematic differences between different measurements are discussed and, in particular, it is argued that there is no…
Recent results from the Pierre Auger Observatory are presented, focusing on a measurement of the cosmic-ray energy spectrum above 10^18 eV, cosmic-ray composition, and the anisotropy in the cosmic ray arrival directions. The flux of cosmic…
In this work, we present detailed simulations for propagation of ultra-high energy (UHE) heavy nuclei, with E > 60 EeV, within recent Galactic Magnetic Field (GMF) models. We investigate the impacts of the regular and turbulent components…
The recently published precise spectrum of cosmic ray protons from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has been examined in some detail from the standpoint of a search for deviations from a smooth, simple, power law. We find a significant…
Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray (UHECR) protons interacting with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) produce UHE electrons and gamma-rays that in turn initiate electromagnetic cascades on CMB and infrared photons. As a result, a background of…
Using data collected at the Pierre Auger Observatory during the past 3.7 years, we demonstrated a correlation between the arrival directions of cosmic rays with energy above ~ 6x10^{19} electron volts and the positions of active galactic…
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…
It is proposed a new approach for estimating the composition of cosmic rays. It is found that the zenith angle distributions and muon components of EAS for energies E>10^19 eV and E>4.10^19 eV differ from each other. It is shown that the…
In this article we examine the hypothesis that the highest energy cosmic rays are complex nuclei from extragalactic sources. Under reasonable physical assumptions, we show that the nearby metally rich starburst galaxies (M82 and NGC 253)…
The clustering of ultra high energy (above 5\cdot 10^{19} eV) cosmic rays (UHECR) suggests that they might be emitted by compact sources. We present a statistical analysis on the source density based on the multiplicities. The propagation…
Cosmic ray particles with energies in excess of 10**(20) eV have been detected. The sources as well as the physical mechanism(s) responsible for endowing cosmic ray particles with such enormous energies are unknown. This report gives a…
We consider the possibility of explaining the observed spectrum and composition of the cosmic rays with energies above $10^{17}$ eV in terms of two different extragalactic populations of sources in the presence of a turbulent intergalactic…
Recent data from ATIC, CREAM and PAMELA indicate that the cosmic ray energy spectra of protons and nuclei exhibit a remarkable hardening at energies above 100 GeV per nucleon. We propose that the hardening is an interstellar propagation…
The dip is a feature in the diffuse spectrum of ultra-high energy (UHE) protons caused by electron-positron pair production on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. For a power-law generation spectrum $E^{-2.7}$, the calculated…
Cosmic rays with energies beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin `cutoff' at $\sim 4 \times 10^{10}$ GeV pose a conundrum, the solution of which requires either drastic revision of our astrophysical understanding, or new physics beyond the…
The structure of the extra high energy cosmic rays spectrum in view of the decay of proton is considered. The time required for proton travel from the source to the earth defines the limiting energy of proton. Protons with the energies more…