Related papers: Photon decay in UHE air showers: stringent bound o…
An upper limit of 16% (at 95% c.l.) is derived for the photon fraction in cosmic rays with energies greater than 10^19 eV, based on observations of the depth of shower maximum performed with the hybrid detector of the Pierre Auger…
Cosmic rays and air showers at ultra-high energy are unique tools to test the validity of Lorentz invariance. A brief overview is given on such tests focusing on isotropic, non-birefringent Lorentz violation (LV) in the photon sector. Based…
A photon induced shower at $E_{prim}\ge 10^{18}$ eV exhibits very specific features and is different from a hadronic one. At such energies, the LPM effect delays in average the first interactions of the photon in the atmosphere and hence…
Many models for ultra-high energy cosmic rays postulate exotic scenarios to explain the sources or the nature of these particles. A characteristic feature of these models is the prediction of a significant flux of photons at ultra-high…
The observation of earth skimming neutrinos has been proposed as a rather sensitive method to detect ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic neutrinos. Energetic cosmic neutrinos can interact inside the rock and produce leptons via a charged current…
The aim of this brief review is to present a case study of how astrophysics data can be used to get bounds on Lorentz-violating parameters. For this purpose, a particularly simple Lorentz-violating modification of the Maxwell theory of…
The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory~(LHAASO) is one of the most sensitive gamma-ray detector arrays currently operating at TeV and PeV energies. Recently the LHAASO experiment detected ultra-high-energy~(UHE; $E_{\gamma}\gtrsim…
Calibrating the absolute energy scale of air showers initiated by ultra-high energy cosmic rays is an important experimental issue. Currently, the corresponding systematic uncertainty amounts to 14-21% using the fluorescence technique. Here…
Extensive air showers (EAS), produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere, serve as probes of particle interactions, providing access to energies and kinematical regimes beyond the reach of laboratory experiments. Measurements from multiple…
The tiny modification of dispersion relation induced by Lorentz violation (LV) is an essential issue in quantum gravity (QG) theories, which can be magnified into significant effects when dealing with astrophysical observations at high…
The violation of Lorentz invariance (LI) has been invoked in a number of ways to explain issues dealing with ultrahigh energy cosmic ray (UHECR) production and propagation. These treatments, however, have mostly been limited to examples in…
The time delays between gamma-rays of different energies from extragalactic sources have often been used to probe quantum gravity models in which Lorentz symmetry is violated. It has been claimed that these time delays can be explained by…
Detecting neutrinos and photons is crucial to identifying the sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), especially for transient sources. We focus on ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray emission from transient sources such as gamma-ray…
We show that combining the published Pierre Auger Observatory measurements of the longitudinal_and_ lateral properties of UHE atmospheric showers, points to an unforeseen change in the nature of particle interactions at ultrahigh energy. A…
Based on observations of the depth of shower maximum performed with the hybrid detector of the Auger Observatory, an upper limit on the cosmic-ray photon fraction of 26% (at 95% confidence level) is derived for primary energies above 10^19…
From special relativity, photon annihilation process \HepProcess{{\Pgg}{\Pgg}{\to}{\Pep}{\Pem}} prevents cosmic photons with energies above a threshold to propagate a long distance in cosmic space due to their annihilation with low energy…
The chemical composition of ultra high energy cosmic rays is still uncertain. The latest results obtained by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the HiRes Collaboration, concerning the measurement of the mean value and the fluctuations of the…
The nature and origin of ultra-high energy (UHE: reffering to > 10^19 eV) cosmic rays are great mysteries in modern astrophysics. The current theories for their explanation include the so-called "top-down" decay scenarios whose main…
We examine the probability of proton-induced air showers at $E>10\,$EeV being misidentified as photon-induced due to neutral pions receiving a major part of the primary energy in the first interaction, thereby enhancing the electromagnetic…
The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) has reported the measurement of photons with high energy up to 1.42 PeV from twelve gamma-ray sources. We are concerned with the implications of LHAASO data on the fate of Lorenz…