Highest-energy cosmic rays from Fermi-degenerate relic neutrinos consistent with Super-Kamiokande results

TL;DR

This paper proposes that relic neutrinos with specific masses can explain ultra-high energy cosmic rays exceeding the GZK cutoff, offering a new perspective on their origin and connection to dark matter.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism linking relic neutrinos to ultra-high energy cosmic rays, consistent with Super-Kamiokande data and dark matter considerations.

Findings

Relic neutrinos with ~0.07 eV mass can produce cosmic rays above GZK cutoff.

The resulting cosmic ray spectrum has distinctive features aiding origin identification.

The mechanism aligns with a high-density neutrino background as hot dark matter.

Abstract

Relic neutrinos with mass 0.07 (+0.02/-0.04) eV, in the range consistent with Super-Kamiokande data, can explain the cosmic rays with energies in excess of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff. The spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays produced in this fashion has some distinctive features that may help identify their origin. Our mechanism does not require but is consistent with a neutrino density high enough to be a new kind of hot dark matter.