Deep shower interpretation of the cosmic ray events observed in excess of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin energy

2006/06/30 by A. Chou, Aaron S. Chou
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.74.103001

published as Phys.Rev.D74:103001,2006 · 22 pages, 5 figures

openalex publication_date 2006/11/02 · arxiv created 2006/11/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We consider the possibility that the ultra-high-energy cosmic ray flux has a small component of exotic particles which create showers much deeper in the atmosphere than ordinary hadronic primaries. It is shown that applying the conventional AGASA/HiRes/Auger data analysis procedures to such exotic events results in large systematic biases in the energy spectrum measurement which may distort the shape of the measured spectrum near the expected Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff energy. Sub-GZK exotic showers may be misreconstructed with much higher energies and mimic super-GZK events. Alternatively, super-GZK exotic showers may elude detection by conventional fluorescence analysis techniques.

Citations

• Direct Detection Constraints on Superheavy Dark Matter
• Black holes from cosmic rays: Probes of extra dimensions and new limits on TeV-scale gravity
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• Extension of the Cosmic-Ray Energy Spectrum beyond the Predicted Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuz'min Cutoff