The Astrophysics of Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Rays

By Kumiko Kotera, Angela V. Olinto. 2011

431 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The origin of the highest energy cosmic rays is still unknown. The discovery of their sources is expected to reveal the workings of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the Universe. Current observations show a spectrum consistent with an origin in extragalactic astrophysical sources. Candidate sources range from the birth of compact objects to explosions related to gamma-ray bursts or to events in active galaxies. We discuss the main effects of propagation from cosmologically distant sources, including interactions with cosmic background radiation and magnetic fields. We examine possible acceleration mechanisms leading to a survey of candidate sources and their signatures. New questions arise from an observed hint of sky anisotropies and an unexpected evolution of composition indicators. Future observations may reach the necessary sensitivity to achieve charged particle astronomy and to observe ultrahigh-energy photons and neutrinos, which may further illuminate the workings of the Universe a...

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a21df5008b123ead728fd8fb50730b93146f4053

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Citations in the corpus

IceCube high-energy starting event sample: Description and flux characterization with 7.5 years of data (2020, background): “Despite this information and a wealth of cosmic-ray observations, the sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays are an unresolved mystery [16].”
All-sky Search for Time-integrated Neutrino Emission from Astrophysical Sources with 7 yr of IceCube Data (2016, background): “In the paradigm of multi-messenger astronomy, both photons and neutrinos can help resolve the sources of UHECRs(Beatty & Westerhoff 2009; Kotera & Olinto 2011).”
THE PdBI ARCSECOND WHIRLPOOL SURVEY (PAWS). I. A CLOUD-SCALE/MULTI-WAVELENGTH VIEW OF THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM IN A GRAND-DESIGN SPIRAL GALAXY (2013, background): “…even be the only one) in the most dense and cold GMCs. Galactic cosmic rays are thought to be accelerated by shocks from SN remnants or even Wolf-Rayet stars (e.g. Kotera & Olinto 2011) and have a fairly homogenous distribution throughout the MW with a galactocentric decrease (e.g. Bloemen 1989).”
The POEMMA (Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) observatory (2020, background): “The impact of the POEMMA exposure in the spectrum is clear for energies above ∼100 EeV, where new spectral features can signal source signatures such as the effect of the closest sources in a given hemisphere [20–22].”
A hadronic origin for ultra-high-frequency-peaked BL Lac objects (2014, background): “…scenarios have the added benefit of providing a potential link to the outstanding question of the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs, see Kotera & Olinto 2011, for a recent review), as well as possibly the sources of PeV neutrinos recently discovered (IceCube Collaboration 2013).”
The Nine Lives of Cosmic Rays in Galaxies (2015, background): “…discovery of cosmic rays has passed, accompanied by commemorative celebrations (Ormes 2013) and reviews (Blandford, Simeon & Yuan 2014; Blasi 2013; Kotera & Olinto 2011; Slane et al. 2014; Zweibel 2013), which highlighted the impressive historical progress on the continuing questions of their…”
INDICATIONS OF INTERMEDIATE-SCALE ANISOTROPY OF COSMIC RAYS WITH ENERGY GREATER THAN 57 EeV IN THE NORTHERN SKY MEASURED WITH THE SURFACE DETECTOR OF THE TELESCOPE ARRAY EXPERIMENT (2014, background): “The distribution of UHECR sources should be limited within the local universe with dis- tances smaller than 100 Mpc for proton/iron and 20 Mpc for helium/carbon/nitrogen/oxygen (distances within which∼50% of cosmic rays are estimated to survive) (Kotera & Olinto 2011).”
Extending the Search for Muon Neutrinos Coincident with Gamma-Ray Bursts in IceCube Data (2017, background): “As these particles are chargeless, they propagate through the universe undeflected, meaning that they can be associated with astrophysical sources to elucidate the origin of UHECRs (Beatty & Westerhoff 2009; Kotera & Olinto 2011).”