Using UHE Cosmic Rays to Probe the CBR and Test Standard Model Particle Physics

TL;DR

This paper explores how the properties of the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) predicted by a unified theory of particle physics and quantum gravity affect ultra-high-energy cosmic ray propagation, enabling source identification and testing fundamental physics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that assuming CBR does not couple to right-handed particles extends UHECR propagation distances, allowing source identification and providing a test for the Standard Model and quantum gravity assumptions.

Findings

Identified sources of 86% of UHECRs observed by Pierre Auger.

Linked 9 out of 11 UHECRs observed by AGASA to specific sources.

Proposed observational tests involving galaxy redshift measurements.

Abstract

Tipler has shown that if we assume that the particle physics Standard Model and DeWitt-Wheeler quantum gravity (equivalent to Feynman-Weinberg quantum gravity) are a Theory of Everything, then in the very early universe, the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) could not have coupled to right handed electrons and quarks. Tipler further showed that if this property of CBR has continued, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect would be observed to be too low by a factor of two. WMAP and PLANCK observed this. Tipler showed that this CBR property would also mean the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) would propagate a factor of ten further than standard theory predicts, since most of the cross section for pion production when a UHECR hits a CBR photon is due to a quark spin flip, and such a flip cannot occur if a CBR particle cannot couple to right-handed quarks. We show that taking this additional propagation distance into account allows us to identify the sources of 86\% of the UHECR seen by the Pierre Auger Collaboration. We can also identify the sources of 9 of the 11 UHECR seen by the AGASA observatory, and the source of the 320 EeV UHECR seen by the Fly's Eye instrument. We propose observations to test the theory underlying the UHECR identifications, beginning with measuring the redshifts of five galaxies whose apparent visual magnitude we estimate to be about 15, and whose positions we give to within one arcsecond. The particle physics Standard Model identifies the Dark Energy and Dark Matter.