Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays: a Window to Post-Inflationary Reheating Epoch of the Universe?

Abstract

We conjecture that the highest energy cosmic rays beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cut-off may provide a unique window into the very early epoch of the Universe, namely, that of reheating after inflation, provided these cosmic rays are due to decays of parent superheavy long-living X-particles. These particles may constitute a considerable fraction of cold dark matter in the Universe. We argue that the unconventionally long lifetime of the superheavy particles, which should be in the range of $10^{10} - 10^{22}$ years, might require novel particle physics mechanisms of their decays, such as instantons. We propose a toy model illustrating the instanton scenario. Generic expected features of ultra-high energy extensive air showers in our scenario are similar to those of other top-down scenarios. However, some properties of the upper part of the cosmic ray spectrum make the instanton scenario distinguishable, at least in principle, from other ones.