Monopole annihilation and highest energy cosmic rays

Abstract

Cosmic rays with energies exceeding 1020 eV have been detected. The origin of these highest energy cosmic rays remains unknown. Established astrophysical acceleration mechanisms encounter severe difficulties in accelerating particles to these energies. Alternative scenarios where these particles are created by the decay of cosmic topological defects have been suggested in the literature. In this paper we study the possibility of producing the highest energy cosmic rays through a process that involves the formation of metastable magnetic monopole-antimonopole bound states and their subsequent collapse. The annihilation of the heavy monopole-antimonopole pairs constituting the monopolonia can produce energetic nucleons, γ rays, and neutrinos whose expected flux we estimate and discuss in relation to experimental data so far available. The monopoles we consider are the ones that could be produced in the early Universe during a phase transition at the grand unification energy scale. We find that observable cosmic ray fluxes can be produced with monopole abundances compatible with present bounds.