Are we seeing magnetic monopole cosmic rays at $E\gsim 10^{20}$ eV?

Abstract

We suggest that the highest energy $ \gsim 10^{20}$ eV cosmic ray primaries may be relativistic magnetic monopoles. Motivations for this hypothesis are twofold: (i) conventional primaries are problematic, while monopoles are naturally accelerated to $E \sim 10^{20}$ eV by galactic magnetic fields; (ii) the observed highest energy cosmic ray flux is just below the Parker limit for monopoles. By matching the cosmic monopole production mechanism to the observed highest energy cosmic ray flux we estimate the monopole mass to be $\lsim 10^{10}$ GeV.