Comparison of UHECR spectra from necklaces and vortons.pdf

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 0 0 8 5 2 5 v 1 3 1 A u g 2 0 0 0 Comparison of UHECR spectra from necklaces and vortons? Luis Masperi?and Milva Orsaria? Centro Latinoamericano de F??sica, Av. Vencenslau Bra?z 71 Fundos, 22290-140 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Abstract Cosmic rays of energy higher than 1019eV may be explained by topological defects produced in the early stages of universe. Two suitable alternatives are: necklaces formed by magnetic monopoles connected by strings, and vortons which are loops stabilized by super- conducting currents. The former are uniformly distributed in the uni- verse, may account for cosmic rays above the ankle, suffer a transient GZK cutoff with a subsequent recovery and isotropy of observations is expected. The latter are concentrated in the galactic halo, require an additional extragalactic contribution between the ankle and the GZK cutoff, beyond which give a harder component and predict anisotropy related to mass concentration. PACS: 98.70.S , 98.80.C 1 Introduction The ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) have an energy spectrum of their flux F (E) that shows for E3F (E) a minimum around 5 x 1018eV which ?Presented at the Chacaltaya Meeting on Cosmic Rays Physics, La Paz, 23-27 July 2000 ?On leave of absence from Centro Ato?mico Bariloche, Argentina. E-mail: masperi@cbpf.br ?E-mail: orsaria@cbpf.br 1 is called the ankle, then a maximum before the GZK cutoff[1] at 5 x 1019eV due to the interaction with the CBR and a recovery after it at 1020eV. Whereas the cosmic rays below the ankle are most probably of galactic origin, it is not clear which is the explanation of the subsequent rise. The possibility that it is due to an extragalactic source seems to be supported by a partial GZK cutoff which would affect cosmic rays traveling at least 50Mpc. But the subsequent observed spectrum up to the highest energy event of 3 x 1020eV indicates a hard component which may be or not related to that which appears above the ankle. It is diffi