Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays and de Sitter Vacua

Abstract

The production of ultra high-energy cosmic rays in de Sitter invariant vacuum states is considered. Assuming the present-day universe is asymptoting toward a future de Sitter phase, we argue the observed flux of cosmic rays places a bound on the parameter $\alpha$ that characterizes these de Sitter invariant vacuum states, generalizing earlier work of Starobinsky and Tkachev. If this bound is saturated, we obtain a new top-down scenario for the production of super-GZK cosmic rays. The observable predictions bear many similarities to the previously studied scenario where super-GZK events are produced by decay of galactic halo super-heavy dark matter particles.

10 pages, revtex4

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• Cosmological Unparticle Correlators
• Fermionic alpha-vacua
• Inflation and the semiclassical dynamics of a conformal scalar field
• Hints of (trans-Planckian) asymptotic freedom in semiclassical cosmology
• String Gas Baryogenesis