Extragalactic Sources for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Nuclei
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2009-11-07 v4 Astrophysics
Abstract
In this article we examine the hypothesis that the highest energy cosmic rays are complex nuclei from extragalactic sources. Under reasonable physical assumptions, we show that the nearby metally rich starburst galaxies (M82 and NGC 253) can produce all the events observed above the ankle. This requires diffusion of particles below eV in extragalactic magnetic fields nG. Above eV, the model predicts the presence of significant fluxes of medium mass and heavy nuclei with small rate of change of composition. Notwithstanding, the most salient feature of the starburst-hypothesis is a slight anisotropy induced by iron debris just before the spectrum-cutoff.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0107287,
title = {Extragalactic Sources for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Nuclei},
author = {Luis Anchordoqui and Haim Goldberg and Stephen Reucroft and John Swain},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0107287},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
To appear in Phys. Rev. D, reference added