TEV AND SUPERHEAVY PARTICLES FROM SUPERSYMMETRIC TOPOLOGICAL DEFECTS,THE EXTRAGALACTIC GAMMA-RAY BACKGROUND, AND THE HIGHEST ENERGY COSMIC-RAYS

Cosmic topological defects in a wide class of supersymmetric theories can simultaneously be sources of Higgs bosons of mass similar to super symmetry breaking scale similar to TeV, as well as superheavy gauge bo sons of mass similar to eta much greater than 1 TeV, eta being the gau ge symmetry breaking scale. Decay of these Higgs and gauge bosons may contribute significantly to the extragalactic diffuse gamma-ray backgr ound (EDGRB) above similar to 10 GeV and explain the highest energy co smic ray (HECR) flux above similar to 10(11) GeV, respectively. Cosmic strings with eta much above 10(14) GeV overproduce both HECR and EDGR B, and hence are ruled out, if massive particle radiation is their dom inant energy loss mechanism.