English

Cosmic Ray Acceleration by Relativistic Shocks: Limits and Estimates

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2017-11-15 v1

Abstract

We examine limits to the energy to which cosmic rays can be accelerated by relativistic shocks, showing that acceleration of light ions as high as 100 EeV is unlikely. The implication of our estimates is that if ultra-high energy cosmic rays are accelerated by shocks, then those shocks are probably not relativistic.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1709.07793,
  title  = {Cosmic Ray Acceleration by Relativistic Shocks: Limits and Estimates},
  author = {AR Bell and AT Araudo and JH Matthews and KM Blundell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.07793},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:52:01.531Z