COSMIC TOPOLOGICAL DEFECTS, HIGHEST ENERGY COSMIC-RAYS, AND THE BARYON ASYMMETRY OF THE UNIVERSE

It is pointed out that the observed extremely high energy cosmic rays (EHECR) above 10(11) GeV and the observed baryon asymmetry of the Univ erse (BAU) may have a common origin in baryon number violating decays of supermassive X particles released from cosmic topological defects ( TDs) such as cosmic strings and monopoles. The X particles produced by TDs in the recent epochs produce the EHECR, while the BAU is created by X particles released from TDs mainly in the very early Universe. In this scenario the EHECR is predicted to contain baryons as well as an tibaryons with a small asymmetry between the two. [S0031-9007(98)06619 -8].