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

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. SubGZK exotic showers may be mis-reconstructed with much higher energies and mimick superGZK events. Alternatively, superGZK exotic showers may elude detection by conventional fluorescence analysis techniques.

22 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Upper limit on the ultra-high-energy photon flux from AGASA and Yakutsk data
• Upper limit on the photon fraction in highest-energy cosmic rays from AGASA data

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Cosmic Rays from the Knee to the Highest Energies
• Search for ultra-high energy photons using air showers
• Detection of Exotic Massive Hadrons in Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Telescopes