Recent PAMELA and ATIC data seem to indicate an excess in positron cosmic rays above approximately 10 GeV which might be due to galactic Dark Matter particle annihilation. However the background of this signal suffers many uncertainties that make our task difficult in constraining Dark Matter or any other astrophysical explanation for these recent surprising data.
Recent observations of lepton cosmic rays, coming from the PAMELA and FERMI experiments, have pushed our understanding of the interstellar medium and cosmic rays sources to unprecedented levels. The imprint of dark matter on lepton cosmic rays is the most exciting explanation of both PAMELA's positron excess and FERMI's total flux of electrons. Alternatively, supernovae are astrophysical objects with the same potential to explain these observations. In this work, we present an updated study of the astrophysical sources of lepton cosmic rays and the possible trace of a dark matter signal on the…
In the early years, cosmic rays contributed essentially to particle physics through the discovery of new particles. Will history repeat itself? As with the discovery of the charged pion, the recent discovery of a Higgs-like boson may portend a rich new set of particles within reach of current and near future experiments. These may be discovered and studied by cosmic rays through the indirect detection of dark matter.
Recent direct measurements of Galactic cosmic ray spectra by balloon/space-borne detectors reveal spectral hardenings of all major nucleus species at rigidities of a few hundred GV. The all-sky diffuse gamma-ray emissions measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope also show spatial variations of the intensities and spectral indices of cosmic rays. These new observations challenge the traditional simple acceleration and/or propagation scenario of Galactic cosmic rays. In this work we propose a spatially-dependent diffusion scenario to explain all these phenomena. The diffusion coefficient is as…
It is known from some time that to explain some apparently {\it exotic events} observed in cosmic ray experiments, a deeply penetrating component in cosmic rays is needed, which, in turn, leads frequently to the nonexponential distributions of some observables. We argue that such unexpected behavior of some cosmic rays data can be most naturally explained by attributing them to the possible fluctuations of cross sections.
We show that the observed fluxes, spectra and sky distributions of the high energy diffuse backgrounds of astronomical neutrinos, gamma rays and cosmic ray positrons satisfy simple relations expected from their common production in hadronic collisions of high energy cosmic rays (CRs) with diffuse matter. This provides compelling evidence that the high energy neutrino, gamma ray, and positron backgrounds have a common origin - hadronic meson production by cosmic rays in our Galaxy and in external galaxies rather than through the decay/annihilation of dark matter particles.
We will review the main physical aspects of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays. We will discuss in particular their propagation through astrophysical backgrounds, focusing on the latest experimental observations of HiRes, Telescope Array and Auger. We will also review the issue of the transition between galactic and extra-galactic cosmic rays.
In view of the current interest in combining different observations to constraint annihilating WIMP dark matter, we examine the relation between the Sommerfeld effect at the recombination epoch and in the galactic halo. By considering an up-to-date collection of interpolations of cosmic rays lepton data (AMS-02 2014, Fermi and PAMELA), as dark matter annihilation signals, we show that current cosmic rays measurements and recent Planck 2015 constraints from CMB anisotropies almost overlap for dark matter masses of the order of few $TeV$, although great theoretical uncertainties afflict cosmic r…
We present arguments aiming to reconcile the apparently contradictory results concerning the chemical composition of cosmic rays of highest energy, coming recently from Auger and HiRes collaborations. In particular, we argue that the energy dependence of the mean value and root mean square fluctuation of shower maxima distributions observed by the Auger experiment are not necessarily caused by the change of nuclear composition of primary cosmic rays.
We discuss the basic features of the propagation of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays in astrophysical backgrounds, comparing two alternative computation schemes to compute the expected fluxes. We also discuss the issue of the transition among galactic and extra-galactic cosmic rays using theoretical results on fluxes to compare different models.
Supernova remnants have long been regarded as sources of the Galactic cosmic rays up to petaelectronvolts, but convincing evidence is still lacking. In this work we explore the common origin of the subtle features of the cosmic ray spectra, such as the knee of cosmic ray spectra and the excesses of electron/positron fluxes recently observed by ATIC, H.E.S.S., Fermi-LAT and PAMELA. Numerical calculation shows that those features of cosmic ray spectra can be well reproduced in a scenario with e$^+$e$^-$ pair production by interactions between high energy cosmic rays and background photons in an …
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) can produce both gamma rays and cosmic rays. The observed high-energy gamma-ray signals from distant blazars may be dominated by secondary gamma rays produced along the line of sight by the interactions of cosmic-ray protons with background photons. This explains the surprisingly low attenuation observed for distant blazars, because the production of secondary gamma rays occurs, on average, much closer to Earth than the distance to the source. Thus the observed spectrum in the TeV range does not depend on the intrinsic gamma-ray spectrum, while it depends on the ou…
We re-visit the production of cosmic rays by cusps on cosmic strings. If a scalar field (``Higgs'') has a linear interaction with the string world-sheet, such as would occur if there is a bosonic condensate on the string, cusps on string loops emit narrow beams of very high energy Higgses which then decay to give a flux of ultra high energy cosmic rays. The ultra-high energy flux and the gamma to proton ratio agree with observations if the string scale is $\sim 10^{13}$ GeV. The diffuse gamma ray and proton fluxes are well below current bounds. Strings that are {\it lighter} and have linear in…
Determination of mass composition of high energy cosmic rays is one of the greatest challenge in modern astrophysics. All of previous methods for finding the mass composition of primary cosmic rays in a surface array at least require two independent measurements (e.g. muon and electron components) of extensive air showers (EAS). Here a new statistical parameter is introduced which can be used to determine the mass composition of vertical downward cosmic rays in a simple surface array. The most interesting thing about the new parameter is that it does not need two independent measurements and c…
Ultra high energy cosmic ray events presently show a spectrum, which we interpret here as galactic cosmic rays due to a starburst in the radio galaxy Cen A pushed up in energy by the shock of a relativistic jet. The knee feature and the particles with energy immediately higher in galactic cosmic rays then turn into the bulk of ultra high energy cosmic rays. This entails that all ultra high energy cosmic rays are heavy nuclei. This picture is viable if the majority of the observed ultra high energy events come from the radio galaxy Cen A, and are scattered by intergalactic magnetic fields acros…
The cosmic rays spectrum has been shown to extend well beyond 10^20 eV. With nearly 20 events observed in the last 40 years, it is now established that particles with energies near or above 10^21 eV. No nearby astrophysical object has been shown to correlate with the arrival directions of the highest energy events, yet the exponential cut-off in the high energy end of the spectrum one expects to see in the case of far sources is not visible. It was recently pointed out that the influence of the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics on particle propagation could explain qualitatively this mystery. …
It has been speculated that cosmic string networks could produce ultra-high energy cosmic rays as a by-product of their evolution. By making use of recent work on the evolution of such networks, it will be shown that the flux of cosmic rays from cosmologically useful, that is GUT scale strings, is too small to be used as a test for strings with any foreseeable technology.
Charged cosmic rays have been measured up to macroscopic energies. Concerning neutrinos, the detection is still limited to terrestrial ones (apart from supernova production). A new way to search for extragalactic neutrinos is discussed.
This paper reviews recent progress in the field of direct measurements of Galactic cosmic rays. High-statistic measurements of cosmic ray energy spectra, chemical and isotopic composition, and the rare antimatter components have been made using large particle physics experiments operating in space. The recent results are discussed in relation to our understanding of the origin of cosmic rays, the open questions, and the challenges for future experiments of direct detection.
We give a brief introduction to the topics discussed at the ISMD 2010 Symposium (Antwerp, 2010) on forward physics at the LHC and its interplay with cosmic rays physics.
The properties of strangelets are reviewed and two experiments searching for them in cosmic rays are described. The prospects for strangelets as ultra-high energy cosmic rays beyond the classical GZK-cutoff are discussed.
We note that antishadowing could help in the explanation of cosmic rays phenomena such as knee in the energetic spectrum and existence of penetrating and long-flying particles.
Recent observations with the large air shower arrays of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) and recent measurements/estimates of the redshifts of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) seem to rule out extragalactic GRBs as the source of the cosmic rays that are observed near Earth, including those with the highest energies.
String unification at a scale of a few tens of TeV explains the existence of cosmic ray interactions beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff. Trans-GZK cosmic rays are neutrinos which can penetrate the cosmic microwave background. In interactions with atmospheric nuclei they have sufficient energy for exciting string modes. We present a model for the description of such interactions and discuss the properties of the resulting extensive air showers. Presently available data on trans-GZK cosmic rays suggest a string scale around 80 TeV.
We discuss possible implications of a large interaction cross section between cosmic rays and dark matter particles due to new physics at the TeV scale. In particular, in models with extra dimensions and a low fundamental scale of gravity the cross section grows very fast at transplanckian energies. We argue that the knee observed in the cosmic ray flux could be caused by such interactions. We show that this hypothesis implies a well defined flux of secondary gamma rays that seems consistent with MILAGRO observations.
Highly relativistic jets from merger and accretion induced collapse of compact stellar objects, which may produce the cosmological gamma ray bursts (GRBs), are also very efficient and powerful cosmic ray accelerators. The expected luminosity, energy spectrum and chemical composition of cosmic rays from Galactic GRBs, most of which do not point in our direction, can explain the observed properties of Galactic cosmic rays.
The phase of inflationary expansion in the early universe produces superheavy relics in a mass window between 10^{12} GeV and 10^{14} GeV. Decay or annihilation of these superheavy relics can explain the observed ultrahigh energy cosmic rays beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff. We emphasize that the pattern of cosmic ray arrival directions with energies beyond 20 EeV will decide between the different proposals for the origin of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays.
We have calculated the dispersion relation for the high energy cosmic rays (protons, electrons and neutrinos) propagating in the Bose gas as well as Bose condensate medium of the pseudo-scalar particles. For cosmic rays propagating in the Bose gas, the mass of the particle will decrease and this is proportional to the boson density in the medium. If the propagating fermion is massless then it will develop an imaginary mass and thus will be absorbed in the medium. But if the condition $m^2/m_ϕp_0\simeq 1$ is satisfied, then the cosmic rays will propagate freely without loosing energy in the Bos…
This article reviews the methods used to obtain a two-sided bound on isotropic modified Maxwell theory from experimental data of ultra high-energy cosmic rays in 2008. The bound is updated with results from the HEGRA experiment.
Elementary particle physics using beams from accelerators and cosmic rays are compared. In particular, recent results on the energy evolution of charged particle multiplicities, the differences between quark and gluon jets, and scaling violations observed in electron-positron annihilation are described.
We consider two recently accentuated, unusual empirical results concerning cosmic-ray events at high energies. We show that the possibility for a correlated explanation is provided by new dynamics which arises from collisions of a neutral Goldstone boson as a component of the highest-energy cosmic rays.
In this work we re-examine the opacity of the cosmic background radiation to the propagation of extremely high energy cosmic rays. We use the continuous energy loss approximation to provide spectral modification factors for several hypothesized cosmic ray sources. Earlier problems with this approximation are resolved including the effects of resonances other than the $Δ$.
We briefly review current theoretical and experimental status of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays. We show that ``top-down'' mechanisms of UHE CR which involve heavy relic particle-like objects predict Galactic anisotropy of highest energy cosmic rays at the level of minimum $\sim 20%$. This anisotropy is large enough to be either observed or ruled out in the next generation of experiments.
It is shown that the fusion of strings is a source of particle production in nucleus--nucleus collisions outside the kinematical limits of nucleon--nucleon collisions. This fact, together with another effect of string fusion, the reduction of multiplicities, sheds some light on two of the main problems of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays, the chemical composition and the energy of the most energetic detected cosmic rays.
We address some current theoretical issues around ultra-high energy cosmic rays. We recall that scenarios producing more gamma-rays than cosmic rays up to high redshift can in general only provide a sub-dominant contribution to the ultra-high energy cosmic ray flux. This includes extra-galactic top-down and the Z-burst scenarios. Finally we discuss the influence of large scale cosmic magnetic fields on ultra-high energy cosmic ray propagation which is currently hard to quantify. The views presented here represent the authors perspective.
We show that ``top-down'' mechanisms of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays which involve heavy relic particle-like objects predict Galactic anisotropy of highest energy cosmic rays at the level of minimum $\sim 20%$. This anisotropy is large enough to be either observed or ruled out in the next generation of experiments.
Cosmic necklaces are hybrid topological defects consisting of monopoles and strings, with two strings attached to each monopole. We argue that the cosmological evolution of necklaces may significantly differ from that of cosmic strings. The typical velocity of necklaces can be much smaller than the speed of light, and the characteristic scale of the network much smaller than the horizon. We estimate the flux of high-energy protons produced by monopole annihilation in the decaying closed loops. For some reasonable values of the parameters it is comparable to the observed flux of ultrahigh-energ…
We present an introductory lecture on general features of cosmic rays, for non-experts, and some recent developments concerning cascade equations for air shower developments.
The muon charge ratio of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays may provide information to detect the composition of the primary cosmic rays. We propose to extract the charge information of high energy muons in very inclined extensive air showers by analyzing their relative lateral positions in the shower transverse plane.
We investigate whether ultra--high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) may be preferentially produced in massive galaxy clusters, by looking for correlations between UHECR directions and those of x-ray clusters. We find an excess-above-random of high energy cosmic rays which correlate with massive galaxy cluster positions. For cosmic rays with energies above 50 EeV the observed correlation is the strongest or angles of 1.2-1.6 degrees where it has a chance probability of about 0.1%. Including lower energy cosmic rays in the sample causes the angle where the most significant correlation is found to incr…
We analyze the existing evidence that BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs) are sources of the highest-energy cosmic rays. We argue that three independent signatures observed in the real data -- (1) improvement of correlations with corrections of trajectories for the Galactic magnetic field; (2) connection between gamma-ray and UHECR emissions; (3) non-uniform distribution of correlating rays over the sky -- are consistent with the hypothesis that a substantial fraction of cosmic rays in the energy range 40-60 EeV are protons accelerated in BL Lacs.
Assuming that cosmic rays entering the Earth's atmosphere contain a small admixture of nuggets of strange quark matter in form of strangelets one can explain a number of apparently "strange" effects observed in different cosmic rays experiments. We shall demonstrate here that the mass spectrum of such strangelets filles the "nuclear desert" gap existing between the heaviest elements observed in Universe and the next "nuclear-like objects" represented by neutron and strange stars.
The spectrum of ultrahigh energy (above \approx 10^{9} GeV) cosmic rays is consistent with the decay of GUT scale particles. The predicted mass is m_X=10^b GeV, where b=14.6_{-1.7}^{+1.6}.
Stable lumps of quark matter may be present in cosmic rays at a flux level, which can be detected by high precision cosmic ray experiments sensitive to anomalous "nuclei" with high mass-to-charge ratio. The properties of these lumps, called strangelets, are described, and so is the production and propagation of strangelets in cosmic rays. Two experiments underway which are sensitive to a strangelet flux in the predicted range are briefly described. Finally it is summarized how strangelets circumvent the acceleration problem encountered by conventional candidates for ultra-high energy cosmic ra…
It is proposed that the highest energy $\sim 10^{20}$eV cosmic ray primaries are protons, decay products of a long-lived progenitor which has propagated from typically $\sim 100$Mpc. Such a scenario can occur in e.g. SU(15) grand unification and in some preon models, but is more generic; if true, these unusual cosmic rays provide a window into new physics.
There are two processes of matter creation after inflation that may be relevant to the resolution of the puzzle of cosmic rays observed with energies beyond GZK cut-off: 1) gravitational creation of superheavy (quasi)stable particles, and 2) non-thermal phase transitions leading to formation of topological defects. We review both possibilities.
We propose that the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays beyond the GZK cutoff and the origin of small cosmological constant can both be explained by vacuum tunneling effects in a theory with degenerate vacua and fermionic doublets. By considering the possibility of tunneling from a particular winding number state, accompanied by violation of some global quantum number of fermions, the small value of the vacuum dark energy and the production of high energy cosmic rays are shown to be related. We predict that the energy of such cosmic rays should be at least $5\times 10^{14}$ GeV.