Related papers: The Highest Energy Cosmic Rays and Particle Physic…
We show that all features of the ultrahigh energy cosmic ray spectrum from 10^{17} eV to 10^{21} eV can be described with a simple power-like injection spectrum of protons under the assumption that the neutrino-nucleon cross-section is…
The origin of the highest energy cosmic rays is still unknown. The discovery of their sources will reveal the workings of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. Current observations show a spectrum consistent with an…
The long-held notion that the highest-energy cosmic rays are of distant extragalactic origin is challenged by observations that events above $\sim 10^{20}$ eV do not exhibit the expected high-energy cutoff from photopion production off the…
Various phenomena of physics beyond that of the Standard Model could occur at high scale. Ultra-high energy cosmic rays are the only particles available to explore scales above a few dozens of TeV. Although these explorations are much more…
Nature is providing particles with energies exceeding 100 EeV. Their existence imposes immediate questions: Are they ordinary particles, accelerated in extreme astrophysical environments, or are they annihilation or decay products of…
Reasons for the current interest in cosmic rays above 10^19 eV are described. The latest results on the energy spectrum, arrival direction distribution and mass composition of cosmic rays are reviewed, including data that were reported…
Cosmic rays represent one of the most important energy transformation processes of the universe. They bring information about the surrounding universe, our galaxy, and very probably also the extragalactic space, at least at the highest…
Recent measurements of cosmic ray electrons and positrons by PAMELA, ATIC, Fermi and HESS have revealed interesting excesses and features in the GeV-TeV range. Many possible explanations have been suggested, invoking one or more nearby…
In models with extra dimensions the fundamental scale of gravity M_D could be of order TeV. In that case the interaction cross section between a cosmic proton of energy E and a dark matter particle \chi will grow fast with E for center of…
High-energy neutrinos are traditionally regarded as unambiguous signatures of hadronic cosmic rays in astrophysical environments. Here we show that TeV neutrinos can instead be produced by energetic electrons through purely electromagnetic…
Some recent experiments detecting very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays above 10-20 TeV independently reported VHE bursts for some of bright gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). If these signals are truly from GRBs, these GRBs must emit a much larger…
Based on tests of a tentative detector for observing geo-synchrotron hard X-rays generated by primary electrons, we study the feasibility of probing cosmic electrons above a few TeV to over 10 TeV. Such high energy electrons are expected to…
Cosmic rays are charged relativistic particles that reach the Earth with extremely high energies, providing striking evidence of the existence of effective accelerators in the Universe. Below an energy around $\sim 10^{17}$ eV cosmic rays…
Searches for physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics are performed at accelerators worldwide. Although having poorer detection capabilities and large beam uncertainties, ultra high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) experiments present…
At energies above a few TeV, no measurements of the cosmic-ray electron spectrum exist yet. By considering the similarity of air showers induced by electrons and gamma rays as seen by ground-based arrays, we use published limits on…
Despite 100 years of effort, we still know very little about the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The observation of neutrinos produced when cosmic-ray protons with energies above $4\times 10^{19}$ eV interact with the cosmic…
Neutrinos with energies above $10^{17}$ eV are detectable with the Surface Detector Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The identification is efficiently performed for neutrinos of all flavors interacting in the atmosphere at large…
Cosmic topological defects in a wide class of supersymmetric theories can simultaneously be sources of higgs particles of mass comparable to the supersymmetry breaking scale $\sim$ TeV, as well as superheavy gauge bosons of mass $\sim\eta$,…
Recent measurements of the spectrum and composition of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays suggest that their extragalactic sources may be accelerating heavy nuclei in addition to protons. This can suppress the cosmogenic neutrino flux relative to…
Cosmic ray collisions at high center of mass energy could enable graviton and black hole production as expected in theories of low-scale quantum gravity, such as extra-dimensions, many species, or some versions of string theory. Here we…