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Possible Explanation for E > 1020 eV Air Showers with Flavour-Changing Neutral Currents

J. Bordes, H. M. Chan, J. Faridani, J. Pfaudler, S. T. Tsou

hep-pharXiv:hep-ph/9705463

Abstract

Air showers observed with E > 1020 eV pose a problem since protons at such energies cannot survive a long journey through the 2.7 K microwave background. It is suggested that they are initiated instead by neutrinos which become strongly interacting through exchanges of gauge bosons associated with generation-changing neutral currents, a suggestion which is supported by calculations in a dualized standard model recently proposed. In turn, the suggestion bounds the mass of the gauge bosons and gives estimates for the branching ratios of FCNC s, c, b, and t meson decays which are accessible to experiments now being planned.

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