GIANT AGN FLARES AND COSMIC RAY BURSTS

By G. Farrar, A. Gruzinov. 2008

136 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We predict a new class of very intense, short-duration active galactic nucleus (AGN) flares capable of accelerating the highest energy cosmic rays, resulting from the tidal disruption of a star or from a disk instability. The rate and power of these flares readily explains the observed flux and density statistics of ultrahigh energy cosmic ray. The photon bursts produced by the predicted AGN flares are discussed; they may soon be detectable. Observations are shown to exclude that continuous jets of powerful AGNs are the sole source of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays; the stringent requirements for gamma-ray bursts to be the source are delineated.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/37bd6607ab5b6a2853e5265e0e822f6df2cf2171

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. E. Berger
3. Bing Zhang
4. S. Gezari
5. Ryan Chornock
6. D. Giannios
7. A. V. Vliet
8. N. Tanvir

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. E. Berger
2. B. Metzger
3. Kumiko Kotera
4. S. Gezari
5. Angela V. Olinto
6. A. V. Vliet
7. J. Rachen
8. J. Gelfand

Citations in the corpus

• Cosmic-ray energy spectrum and composition up to the ankle - the case for a second Galactic component (2016, background): “The physical motivation for this scenario is the acceleration of heavy nuclei at external/internal shocks in gamma ray bursts (Murase et al. 2008; Globus et al. 2015b), or in tidal disruption events (Farrar & Gruzinov 2009).”
• OPTICAL DISCOVERY OF PROBABLE STELLAR TIDAL DISRUPTION FLARES (2010, background): “…completely; for instance the presence of a weak, pre-existing accretion disk might significantly enhance the power of the flare, as proposed by Farrar & Gruzinov (2009) as an explanation for the correlation reported between ultra-high energy cosmic rays and AGNs (The Pierre Auger…”
• Radio transients from stellar tidal disruption by massive black holes (2011, background): “Such jet may be responsible to the acceleration of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (Farrar & Gruzinov 2009).”
• Swift J1112.2−8238: a candidate relativistic tidal disruption flare (2015, background): “In addition, the relativistic jets emitted by these events have been suggested as a possible source of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (e.g. Farrar & Gruzinov 2009; Bloom et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2011; Farrar & Piran 2014).”
• The Astrophysics of Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Rays (2011, background): “AGN are often suggested as continuous emitters of UHECRs, however transient events such as AGN flares more easily meet the UHECR acceleration requirements (Farrar & Gruzinov 2009).”