Related papers: TOPOLOGICAL DEFECTS AND HIGHEST ENERGY COSMIC AND …
The origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays via annihilation of heavy stable, fermions "f", of the cosmological dark matter (DM) is studied. The particles in question are supposed to be created by the scalaron decays in $R^2$ modified…
Topological defects, particularly cosmic strings, can provide a mechanism to produce particles with energies of the order 10^21 eV and higher. Here, we report on order of magnitude calculations of fluxes from a cosmic string network which…
An overview on the present observational status and phenomenological understanding of cosmic rays above 10^16 eV is given. Above these energies the cosmic ray flux is expected to be gradually dominated by an extra-galactic component. In…
We discuss a scenario in which the highest energy cosmic rays (CR's) and cosmological $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRB's) have a common origin. This scenario is consistent with the observed CR flux above $10^{20}\text{eV}$, provided that each burst…
Archival EAS-MSU data are searched for anomalous muonless events which may be caused by primary gamma rays with energies between 10^15 eV and 10^18 eV. We consider a refined sample of high-quality data and confirm the previously reported…
While there is some level of consensus on a Galactic origin of cosmic rays up to the knee ($E_{k}\sim 3\times 10^{15}$ eV) and on an extragalactic origin of cosmic rays with energy above $\sim 10^{19}$ eV, the debate on the genesis of…
We explore scenarios where the highest energy cosmic rays are produced by new particle physics near the grand unification scale. Using detailed numerical simulations of extragalactic nucleon, gamma-ray, and neutrino propagation, we show the…
We shortly discuss several astrophysical scenarios leading to cosmic ray acceleration up to extremely high energies reaching the scale of 10^{20} eV. The processes suggested in the literature include acceleration at relativistic jet…
Dark matter annihilation and other processes may precipitate a flux of diffuse ultra-high energy $\gamma$-rays. These $\gamma$-rays may be observable in present day experiments which observe diffuse fluxes at the GeV scale. Yet the universe…
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays interacting with the radiation fields in the universe cause electromagnetic cascades resulting in a flux of extragalactic gamma rays, detectable to some 100 GeV. Recent precise measurements of the extragalactic…
It has been argued that the observations of cosmic particles with energies in excess of $10^8$ TeV represent a puzzle. Its solution requires new astrophysics or new particle physics. We show that the latter is unlikely given that the scale…
In this paper we show that the conventional diffusive shock acceleration mechanism for cosmic rays associated with relativistic astrophysical shocks in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) has severe difficulties to explain the highest energy…
The impressive power-law decay of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays over more than thirty orders of magnitude in intensity and for energies ranging over eleven decades between $\simeq 10^9 $eV and $\simeq 10^{20} $eV is actually dotted…
Gamma-ray bursts are produced by the dissipation of the kinetic energy of a highly relativistic fireball, via the formation of a collisionless shock. When this happens, Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays up to 10^20 eV are produced. I show in…
We show that cosmic rays in external galaxies, groups and clusters rich in gas, with an average flux similar to that observed in the Milky Way, could have produced the observed extragalactic diffuse gamma radiation.
The energy spectrum of cosmic rays above 2.5x10^18eV, derived from 20,000 events recorded at the Pierre Auger Observatory, is described. The spectral index gamma of the flux, J ~ E^-gamma, at energies between 4x10^18eV and 4x10^19eV is…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely associated with the most energetic processes…
We consider the problem of the cosmic ray spectrum formation assuming that cosmic rays are produced by Galactic sources. The anomalous diffusion equation proposed in our recent papers is used to describe cosmic ray propagation in the…
Observations of cosmic rays have been improved at all energies, both in terms of higher statistics and reduced systematics. As a result, the all particle cosmic ray energy spectrum starts to exhibit more structures than could be seen…
The latest results on the sky distribution of ultra-high energy cosmic ray sources have consequences for their nature and time structure. If the sources accelerate predominantly nuclei of atomic number A and charge Z and emit continuously,…