Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray probes of large scale structure and magnetic fields

By G. Sigl, Francesco Miniati, Torsten A. Ensslin. 2004

160 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study signatures of a structured universe in the multi-pole moments, auto-correlation function, and cluster statistics of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays above ${10}^{19}\mathrm{eV}.$ We compare scenarios where the sources are distributed homogeneously or according to the baryon density distribution obtained from a cosmological large scale structure simulation. The influence of extragalactic magnetic fields is studied by comparing the case of negligible fields with fields expected to be produced along large scale shocks with a maximal strength consistent with observations. We confirm that strongly magnetized observers would predict considerable anisotropy on large scales, which is already in conflict with current data. In the best fit scenario only the sources are strongly magnetized, although deflection can still be considerable, of order $20\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}$ up to ${10}^{20}\mathrm{eV},$ and a pronounced GZK cutoff is predicted. We then discuss signatures for future large scale full-sky detectors such as the Pierre Auger and EUSO projects. Auto-correlations are sensitive to the source density only if magnetic fields do not significantly affect propagation. In contrast, for a weakly magnetized observer, degree scale auto-correlations below a certain level indicate magnetized discrete sources. It may be difficult even for next generation experiments to distinguish between structured and unstructured source distributions.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aef22032415dc267a04de111240d662123462d13

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In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Citations in the corpus

An MHD gadget for cosmological simulations (2008, background): “The latterpredict magnetic field strength in filaments with somewhat higher values (e.g. see Sigl et al. 2004) than predicted by simulationswhich start from a primordial magnetic seed field, but are in line with predictions of magnetic field values from turbulence (Ryu et al.2008).”
CRPropa 3—a public astrophysical simulation framework for propagating extraterrestrial ultra-high energy particles (2016, unknown): “[49].”
The Astrophysics of Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic Rays (2011, background): “…of the formation of large scale structures including magnetic fields, in order to model more realistic inhomogeneous configurations (Ryu et al. 1998; Sigl et al. 2004; Dolag et al. 2004, 2005; Brüggen et al. 2005; Ryu et al. 2008; Dubois & Teyssier 2008; Das et al. 2008; Donnert et al. 2009).”
Cosmological Magnetic Fields: Their Generation, Evolution and Observation (2013, background): “…the deflection of UHECR by the magnetic field of the intervening large scale structure, such as galaxy clusters and/or filaments by two groups (see Sigl et al (2004) and Dolag et al (2005))led to contradictory results, which reflect uncertainties of the structure of magnetic fields inside and…”
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, unknown): “In order to investigate the UHECR propagation from the extragalactic sources, a number of numerical simulations have been developed (Yoshiguchi et al. 2003; Sigl et al. 2004; Takami et al. 2006; Kashti & Waxman 2008; Koers & Tinyakov 2009; Takami & Sato 2010; Kalli et al. 2011; Takami et al. 2012).”