Related papers: Shimmering gravitons in the gamma-ray sky
Top-down models of cosmic rays produce more neutrinos than photons and more photons than protons. In these models, we reevaluate the fluxes of neutrinos associated with the highest energy cosmic rays in light of mounting evidence that they…
Ultrahigh-energy gamma rays ($E_{\gamma}>100 \, {\rm TeV}$) have been detected from a handful of astrophysical sources. Due to the Klein-Nishina suppression of inverse Compton scattering at such high energies, it has sometimes been argued…
High-energy photons with $\mathcal{O}$(MeV) energies from radioactive contaminants can scatter in a solid-state target material and constitute an important low-energy background for sub-GeV dark matter direct-detection searches. This…
We have shown that inflatons with a mass which is calculated to be of the order of $10^{10}\GeV$ can constitute a dominant part of dark matter. They can decay uniquely into a neutrino and antineutrino with a lifetime calculated to be…
The observed fluxes of cosmic rays and gamma rays are used to infer the maximum allowed high-energy neutrino flux allowed for Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), following Mannheim, Protheroe, and Rachen (2000). It is shown that if GRBs produce the…
Photon-photon scattering of gamma-rays on the cosmic microwave background has been studied using the low energy approximation of the total cross section by Zdziarski & Svensson (1989); Svensson & Zdziarski (1990). Here, the cosmic horizon…
In some supergravity models, the superlight gravitino is accompanied by a light weakly coupled scalar (S) and pseudo-scalar (P) particle. The coupling of these particles to matter is inversely proportional to the product of the gravitino…
As shown by Gertsenshtein in 1961, an external magnetic field can catalyze the mixing of graviton and photon states in a manner analogous to neutrino-flavor oscillations. We first present a straightforward derivation of the mechanism by a…
If ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are accelerated at astrophysical point sources, the identification of such sources can be achieved if there is some kind of radiation at observable wavelengths that may be associated with the…
Gravitational waves (GWs) can convert into electromagnetic waves in the presence of a magnetic field via the Gertsenshtein-Zeldovich (GZ) effect. The characteristics of the magnetic field substantially affect this conversion probability.…
The propagation of very high energy gamma-rays ($E>100$~GeV) over cosmological distances is suppressed by pair-production processes with the ubiquitous extra-galactic soft photon background, mainly in the optical to near infra-red. The…
A small fraction of X-ray photons from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), after escaping the relativistic jet, are scattered by electrons in the circumburst medium. Subsequent photon-photon absorption between the incoming MeV $\gamma$-rays and the…
We reconsider the effects of photon-graviton conversion in a primordial magnetic field upon the cosmic microwave background radiation. We argue that plasma effects make the photon-graviton conversion process negligible.
It is believed that relic gravitons are squeezed during inflation. If so, quantum noise induced by them can be significantly enhanced in current interferometers. However, decoherence of the gravitons during cosmic history may change the…
This is a review of neutrino astronomy anchored to the observational fact that Nature accelerates protons and photons to energies in excess of $10^{20}$ and $10^{13}$ eV, respectively. Although the discovery of cosmic rays dates back close…
Scattering relativistic electrons with optical lasers can result in a significant frequency upshift for the photons, potentially producing $\gamma$-rays. This is what linear Compton scattering taught us. Ultra-intense lasers offer nowadays…
We have used data from the TeV gamma-ray flare associated with the active galaxy Markarian 421 observed on 15 May 1996 to place bounds on the possible energy-dependence of the speed of light in the context of an effective quantum…
Contrary to general belief, the Fraunhofer lines have been found to be plasma redshifted and not gravitationally redshifted, when observed on Earth. Quantum mechanical effects cause the photons' gravitational redshift to be reversed as the…
There is a robust upper limit on the energy of synchrotron radiation in high-energy astrophysics: $ \sim m_{\rm e} c^2 /\alpha$, where $\alpha = 1/137$ is the fine structure constant and the value refers to the comoving frame of the fluid.…
We study the influence of phantom fields on strong field gravitational lensing. Supposing that the gravitational field of the supermassive central object of the Galaxy is described by a phantom black hole metric, we estimate the numerical…