Related papers: A Quantum Phase Transition in the Cosmic Ray Energ…
Atomic nuclei appearing in cosmic rays are typically classified as primary or secondary. However, a better understanding of their origin and propagation properties is still necessary. We analyse the flux of primary (He, C, O) and secondary…
We analyze the possibility that the cosmic ray knee appears at an energy threshold where the proton-dark matter cross section becomes large due to new TeV physics. It has been shown that such interactions could break the proton and produce…
Phase transitions which occur at zero temperature when some non-thermal parameter like pressure, chemical composition or magnetic field is changed are called quantum phase transitions. They are caused by quantum fluctuations which are a…
In their ground states, atomic nuclei are quantum Fermi liquids. At finite temperatures and low densities, these nuclei may undergo a phase change similar to, but substantially different from, a classical liquid gas phase transition. As in…
A finite vacuum energy density implies the existence of a UV scale for gravitational modes. This gives a phenomenological scale to the dynamical equations governing the cosmological expansion that must satisfy constraints consistent with…
The analysis of cosmic rays fluxes as a function of energy reveals a {\it knee} slightly below $10^{16}$ eV and an {\it ankle} close to $10^{19}$ eV. Their physical origins remain up to now quite enigmatic; in particular, no elementary…
We propose that the knee in the cosmic ray spectrum at energies E ~ 10^{15.5} eV is due to "new physics", namely to a channel in the high energy (~ TeV in the CM) proton interactions hitherto unaccounted for in estimating the energies of…
Cosmic Ray nuclei in the energy range 100 MeV/nuc - 100 GeV/nuc provide crucial information about the physical properties of the Galaxy. They can also be used to answer questions related to astroparticle physics. This paper reviews the…
The most recent experimental results on the cosmic ray composition and energy spectrum above 1 TeV are reviewed and discussed. All data agree on the presence of the so-called ``knee'' at an energy E(knee) = 3-4 PeV; the knee is seen in all…
Recent observations of cosmic ray protons in the energy range $10^2$--$10^5$~GeV have revealed that the spectrum cannot be described by a simple power law. A hardening of the spectrum around an energy of order few hundred~GeV, first…
Examining the reverse evolution of the universe from the present, long before reaching Planck density dynamics one expects major modifications from the de-coherent thermal equations of state, suggesting a prior phase that has macroscopic…
In this report we review the important progress made in recent years towards understanding the experimental data on ultra-high-energy ($E \gtrsim 10^9$ GeV) cosmic rays. We begin with a general survey of the available data, including a…
Quantum phase transitions occur at zero temperature when some non-thermal control-parameter like pressure or chemical composition is changed. They are driven by quantum rather than thermal fluctuations. In this review we first give a…
We systematically explore and show the existence of finite-temperature continuous quantum phase transition (CTQPT) at a critical point, namely, during solidification or melting such that the first-order thermal phase transition is a special…
The small change in the spectral slope of the overall intensity of cosmic rays near 1 PeV may be associated with the endpoint energy of supernova shock acceleration. A crucial test of this connection and other ideas of the origin of the…
We report a kind of quantum phase transition which takes place in isolated quantum systems with non-thermal equilibrium states and an extra symmetry that commutes with the Hamiltonian for any values of the system parameters. A critical…
Extragalactic cosmic ray protons with an injection spectrum of the type $E^{-2.7}$ show a spectrum on earth with a dip due to the Bethe-Heitler pair production against the photons of the cosmic microwave background. The dip is produced in…
We investigate a new mechanism for the cosmological QCD phase transition: inhomogeneous nucleation. The primordial temperature fluctuations, measured to be $\delta T/T \sim 10^{-5}$, are larger than the tiny temperature interval, in which…
The cosmic rays 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 with energies near or above 10^21 eV. No nearby astrophysical object has been…
The main purpose of this work is to find the causes of the break of the cosmic ray spectrum at an energy of 3 PeV, which is called the knee. The solution of the problem is associated with the determination of the nuclear composition of…