2007/10/02 by Luis A. Anchordoqui, Antonio Delgado, A. Delgado +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.77.023009
published as Phys.Rev.D77:023009,2008 · 13 pages revtex, 9 eps figures. A ps version with high resolution figures is available at http://www.hep.physics.neu.edu/staff/doqui/rhadron_highres.ps
arxiv created 2007/10/02 · openalex publication_date 2008/01/31 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Eventual signals of split supersymmetry in cosmic ray physics are analyzed in detail. The study focuses particularly on quasistable colorless R-hadrons originating from confinement of long-lived gluinos (with quarks, antiquarks, and gluons) produced in pp collisions at astrophysical sources. Because of parton density requirements, the gluino has a momentum which is considerably smaller than the energy of the primary proton, and so production of heavy (mass \ensuremath∼500 GeV) R-hadrons requires powerful cosmic ray engines able to accelerate particles up to extreme energies, somewhat above 1013.6 GeV. Using a realistic Monte Carlo simulation with the AIRES engine, we study the main characteristics of the air showers triggered when one of these exotic hadrons impinges on a stationary nucleon of the Earth's atmosphere. We show that R-hadron air showers present clear differences with respect to those initiated by standard particles. We use these shower characteristics to construct observables which may be used to distinguish long-lived gluinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory.