Hard component of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and vortons

Abstract

Observed events of ultra-high energy cosmic rays may indicate a hard component for the energy spectrum of their flux, which might have origin in the decay of long-lived vortons presumably condensed in the galactic halo. To be consistent with the needed present density, vortons may have been formed during the breaking of an abelian symmetry contained in a large GUT group like E6 and a part of them could have survived the destabilization caused by the electroweak transition.

accepted version to appear in Astroparticle Physics. 24 pages, 3 figures. Enlarged discussion on vortons formation and GUT models

References in corpus (3)

• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays: The theoretical challenge
• The GZK Feature in our Neighborhood of the Universe
• Grand Unification Signal from Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays?

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• Astrophysical Origins of Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays
• Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays: The state of the art before the Auger Observatory
• Fluxes of cosmic rays: A delicately balanced stationary state
• SUSY Resonances from UHE neutralinos in Neutrino Telescopes and in the Sky
• Feasibility of Correlated Extensive Air Shower Detection with a Distributed Cosmic Ray Network
• A possible origin of superconducting currents in cosmic strings