High-energy Cosmic Ray production in X-ray Binary Jets
Abstract
As smaller analogs of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), X-ray Binaries (XRBs) are also capable of launching jets that accelerate particles to high energies. In this work, we reexamine XRB jets as potential sources of high-energy cosmic rays (CRs) and explore whether they could provide a significant second Galactic component to the CR spectrum. In the most intriguing scenario, XRB-CRs could dominate the observed spectrum above the so-called "knee" feature at eV, offering an explanation for several key issues in this transition zone from Galactic to extragalactic CRs. We discuss how such a scenario could be probed in the near future via multi-messenger observations of XRB jets, as well as diffuse Galactic neutrino flux measurements.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2002.01477,
title = {High-energy Cosmic Ray production in X-ray Binary Jets},
author = {A. J. Cooper and D. Gaggero and S. Markoff and S. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.01477},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS