Related papers: Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays and Inflation
We calculate the reheating temperature in scenarios where heavy particles are gravitationally produced during a phase transition. We explore two distinct situations: the decay of these particles both during and after the kination phase.…
In this paper we present a comprehensive study of the heavy quark production in ultra high energy cosmic ray interactions in the atmosphere considering that the primary cosmic ray can be either a photon, neutrino or a proton. The analysis…
Ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) pose a problem either for particle physics or for astrophysics (or for both) by the unexpectedly high number of cosmic ray showers observed with energy above about 5x10^{19}eV, the…
Recent observations provide compelling evidence that the bulk of the high energy cosmic rays (CRs) and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are co-produced by highly relativistic jets of plasmoids of stellar matter. These jets are launched by fall back…
A short introduction to structure formation is given, followed by a discussion of the possible characteristics of the initial perturbations assuming a generic inflationary origin. Observational data related to large-scale structure and the…
It is argued that the Universe reheating in bouncing cosmologies could be explained via gravitational particle production, as due to a sudden phase transition in the contracting regime. To this end, it is shown that gravitational production…
Particle production from vacuum fluctuations during inflation is briefly revisited. The moduli problem occurring with light particles produced at the end of inflation is addressed, namely the fact that some results are in disagreement with…
Galaxies at high redshifts with strong star formation are sources of high-energy cosmic rays. These cosmic rays interact with the baryon and radiation fields of the galactic environment via photo-pair, photo-pion and proton-proton processes…
A rapid phase of accelerated expansion in the early universe, known as inflation, dilutes all matter except the vacuum induced quantum fluctuations. These are responsible for seeding the initial perturbations in the baryonic matter, the…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
We demonstrate that violent kinetic preheating following inflation can lead to the formation of black holes in the early Universe. In $\alpha$-attractor models with derivative inflaton couplings, nonlinear amplification of field…
Observations of the cosmic microwave sky are revealing the primordial non-uniformities from which all structure in the Universe grew. The only known physical mechanism for generating the inhomogeneities we see involves the amplification of…
The recent detection of the gravitational wave source GW150914 by the LIGO collaboration motivates a speculative source for the origin of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays as a possible byproduct of the immense energies achieved in black hole…
Cosmic-rays with energies exceeding 10^{19} eV are referred to as Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs). The sources of these particles and their acceleration mechanism are unknown, and for many years have been the issue of much debate.…
The reheating of the universe after hybrid inflation proceeds through the nucleation and subsequent collision of large concentrations of energy density in the form of bubble-like structures moving at relativistic speeds. This generates a…
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 review the basic ideas on the origin of cosmic rays with energy in excess of $\sim 10^{19}$ eV, in the light of the most recent observational findings. The limited statistics of events detected by the two largest experiments currently…
We discuss two important modifications of inflationary paradigm. Until very recently we believed that inflation automatically leads to flatness of the universe, Omega = 1. We also thought that post-inflationary phase transitions in GUTs may…
The origin of Ultra--High Energy ($E \gsim 10^{20}$ eV) Cosmic Rays (UHECR) remains mysterious. I discuss ``top--down'' models, where UHECR originate from the decay of very massive, long--lived particles. I summarize the calculation of the…
The detection of cosmic rays with energy around and in excess of $10^{20}$ eV raises many questions that future experiments will help answering to. I address here my view of some of these open issues, as they are now and as they might be…