Beyond the standard model

In this paper the authors briefly review the necessity of going beyond the Standard Model. We argue that certain types of composite models of quarks and leptons may resolve some of the difficulties of the SM. Furthermore the authors argue that, even without a full specification of a composite model, one may predict some observable effects following from the compositeness hypothesis. The effects are most easily seen in reaction channels in which there is little competition from known processes predicted by the SM, typically in neutrino induced reactions. The authors suggest that above a certain characteristic energy, neutrino cross sections rise well above those predicted within the framework of the SM and the difference between the characteristic features of lepton and hadron induced reactions is blurred. The authors claim that there is some (so far, tenuous) evidence for the phenomenon we just alluded to: in certain high energy cosmic ray interactions it appears that photons and/or neutrinos behave in a manner which is inconsistent with the SM. The authors analyze the data and conclude that the origin of the anomaly in the observational data arises from an increased neutrino interaction cross section