Related papers: Cosmic Rays above the Knee
The energy spectrum of cosmic rays between 10**16 eV and 10**18 eV, derived from measurements of the shower size (total number of charged particles) and the total muon number of extensive air showers by the KASCADE-Grande experiment, is…
The signatures of UHE proton propagation through CMB are pair-production dip and GZK cutoff. The visible manifestations of these spectral features are ankle, beginning of GZK cutoff in the differential spectrum and E_{1/2} in integral…
I develop a theory to account for the cosmic ray spectrum. The essential assumption is that, due to fast convective motions, the free mean path perpendicular to the magnetic field is independent of energy and has the scale of the thickness…
The understanding of the nature of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays is one of the most intriguing open questions for current and future observatories. These particles are expected to be accelerated in extragalactic sources. Because of their…
The energy at which cosmic rays from extra-galactic sources begin to dominate over those from galactic sources is an important open question in astroparticle physics. A natural candidate is the energy at the 'ankle' in the approximately…
A review is given of the main properties of the charged component of galactic cosmic rays, particles detected at Earth with an energy spanning from tens of MeV up to about 10^19 eV. After a short introduction to the topic and an historical…
The sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays are not yet known. However, the discovery of anisotropic cosmic rays above 57x10^18 eV by the Pierre Auger Observatory suggests that a direct source detection may soon be possible. The…
The search for the origin of cosmic rays is as active as ever, mainly driven by new insights provided by recent pieces of observation. Much effort is being channelled in putting the so called supernova paradigm for the origin of galactic…
We report a measurement of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays above $2.5{\times} 10^{18}$ eV based on $215,030$ events. New results are presented: at about $1.3{\times} 10^{19}$ eV, the spectral index changes from $2.51 \pm 0.03 \textrm{…
The energy spectrum and mass composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays inferred at the Pierre Auger Observatory are used to derive a benchmark scenario for the emission mechanisms at play in extragalactic accelerators as well as for…
Over the last third of the century, a few tens of events, detected by ground-based cosmic ray detectors, have opened a new window in the field of high-energy astrophysics. These events have macroscopic energies, unobserved sources, an…
A promising energy range to look for angular correlation between cosmic rays of extragalactic origin and their sources is at the highest energies, above few tens of EeV ($1\:{\rm EeV}\equiv 10^{18}\:$eV). Despite the flux of these particles…
Investigations of the energy spectrum as well as the mass composition of cosmic rays in the energy range of PeVto EeV are important for understanding both, the origin of the galactic and the extragalactic cosmic rays. Recently, three modern…
We have measured the cosmic ray spectrum at energies above $10^{17}$ eV using the two air fluorescence detectors of the High Resolution Fly's Eye experiment operating in monocular mode. We describe the detector, PMT and atmospheric…
A detailed investigation of radio galaxies has recently stressed these sources as the possible origin of the cosmic rays observed above $3\,\text{EeV}$. Here, the relevance of this model at energies below $3\,\text{EeV}$ is investigated.…
The wealth of data collected in the last few years thanks to the Pierre Auger Observatory and recently to the Telescope Array made the problem of the origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays a genuinely experimental/observational one. The…
The production of energetic particles in the universe remains one of the great mysteries of modern science. The mechanisms of acceleration in astrophysical sources and the details about the propagation through the galactic and extragalactic…
A brief motivation for studying cosmic rays at energies 10^14 < E < 10^17 eV is given. Besides astrophysical interests in identifying and understanding their sources, there are also particle physics aspects related to their transport…
We review the basic ideas on the origin of cosmic rays with energy in excess of $\sim 10^{19}$ eV, in the light of the most recent observational findings. The limited statistics of events detected by the two largest experiments currently…
We study the anisotropies on large angular scales which can be present in the flux of cosmic rays reaching the Earth from a population of extragalactic sources, focusing on the energy range between the second knee and the ankle. In this…