The Sensitivity Of Cosmic Ray Air Shower Experiments For Excited Lepton And Leptoquark Detection

In this paper, the sensitivity of present and planned very high energy cosmic ray experiments to the production of excited leptons and leptoquarks is estimated and discussed. These particles arise in composite models with substructure in the fermionic sector. Leptoquarks also arise naturally in models attempting the unification of the quark and lepton sectors of the standard model of particle physics. Such exotic particles could be produced in the interaction of high energy quasi-horizontal cosmic neutrinos with the atmosphere, originating extensive air showers observable in large cosmic ray experiments. Excited lepton production could occur via neutral and charged current processes, nu N -> nu*X and nu N -> l*X. The hadronic component X, and possibly part of the excited lepton decay products, would contribute to the detectable shower. A leptoquark could be produced via their direct coupling to a quark and a neutrino. The hadronic decay products of the leptoquark, and possibly its leptonic decay products, would be detectable.