Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays and Symmetries of Spacetime
Abstract
Description
High energy cosmic rays allow probing phenomena that are inacessible to accelerators. Observation of cosmic rays, presumebly protons, with energies beyond $4 \times 10^{19} eV$, the so-called Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cut-off, give origin to two puzzles: How do particles accelerate to such energies ? Are their sources within $50 - 100 Mpc$ from Earth, or Lorentz invariance is actually a broken symmetry ?
Expanded discussion, 9 pages, plain Latex. This essay was selected for an Honorable Mention by the Gravity Research Foundation, 2001
Expanded discussion, 9 pages, plain Latex. This essay was selected for an Honorable Mention by the Gravity Research Foundation, 2001