Cosmic rays and tests of fundamental principles

TL;DR

Cosmic rays serve as a unique tool to test fundamental physics principles at energies beyond current accelerators, offering insights into quantum mechanics, cosmology, and potential new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Contribution

The paper discusses how cosmic-ray experiments can test a wide range of fundamental principles and introduces a novel spinorial space-time framework with implications for physics beyond the Planck scale.

Findings

Cosmic rays can test principles like relativity, quantum mechanics, and conservation laws.

A spinorial space-time model naturally explains cosmological features and predicts new effects.

Spin-1/2 particles may be linked to pre-Big Bang physics and beyond-Planck phenomena.

Abstract

It is now widely acknowledged that cosmic rays experiments can test possible new physics directly generated at the Planck scale or at some other fundamental scale. By studying particle properties at energies far beyond the reach of any man-made accelerator, they can yield unique checks of basic principles. A well-known example is provided by possible tests of special relativity at the highest cosmic-ray energies. But other essential ingredients of standard theories can in principle be tested: quantum mechanics, uncertainty principle, energy and momentum conservation, effective space-time dimensions, hamiltonian and lagrangian formalisms, postulates of cosmology, vacuum dynamics and particle propagation, quark and gluon confinement, elementariness of particles... Standard particle physics or string-like patterns may have a composite origin able to manifest itself through specific cosmic-ray signatures. Ultra-high energy cosmic rays, but also cosmic rays at lower energies, are probes of both "conventional" and new Physics. Status, prospects, new ideas, and open questions in the field are discussed. The Post Scriptum shows that several basic features of modern cosmology naturally appear in a SU(2) spinorial description of space-time without any need for matter, relativity or standard gravitation. New possible effects related to the spinorial space-time structure can also be foreseen. Similarly, the existence of spin-1/2 particles can be naturally related to physics beyond Planck scale and to a possible pre-Big Bang era.