Related papers: High energy cosmic ray self-confinement close to e…
One of the models recently proposed to explain the origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays assumes that these particles may be accelerated by the electromotive force around presently inactive quasar remnants. We study predictions for…
We discuss the possibility of observing ultra high energy cosmic ray sources inhigh energy gamma rays. Protons propagating away from their accelerators produce secondary electrons during interactions with cosmic microwave background…
This is a summary of a series of lectures on the current experimental and theoretical status of our understanding of origin and nature of cosmic radiation. Specific focus is put on ultra-high energy cosmic radiation above ~10^17 eV,…
Ultra high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are believed to be protons accelerated in magnetized plasma outflows of extra-Galactic sources. The acceleration of protons to ~10^{20} eV requires a source power L>10^{47} erg/s. The absence of steady…
The existence of cosmic rays of energies exceeding 10^20 eV is one of the mysteries of high energy astrophysics. The spectrum and the high energy to which it extends rule out almost all suggested source models. The challenges posed by…
The latest results on the sky distribution of ultra-high energy cosmic ray sources have consequences for their nature and time structure. If the sources accelerate predominantly nuclei of atomic number A and charge Z and emit continuously,…
The energetics, spectrum, and composition of cosmic rays with energies below about $10^{15}$ eV are fairly well explained by models involving supernova shocks. In contrast, no widely accepted theory exists for the origin of ultra-high…
Analytical calculations of extra-galactic cosmic ray spectra above ~10^17 eV are often performed assuming continuous source distributions, giving rise to spectra that depend little on the propagation mode, be it rectilinear or diffusive. We…
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays are mostly charged particles and they are therefore deflected by magnetic fields on their path from their sources to Earth. An interesting phenomenon arising from these deflections is the appearance of multiple…
We explore scenarios where the highest energy cosmic rays (HECR) are produced by new particle physics near the grand unification scale. Using detailed numerical simulations of extragalactic cosmic and gamma-ray propagation, we show the…
Nearby sources of cosmic rays up to a ZeV(=10^21 eV) could be observed with a multi-messenger approach including secondary gamma-rays and neutrinos. If cosmic rays above ~10^18 eV are produced in magnetized environments such as galaxy…
The propagation of cosmic iron nuclei with energies above 10^19 eV from their sources to the Galaxy is discussed by assuming that cosmic rays at ultra-high energies are of extragalactic origin. In extragalactic space, cosmic nuclei interact…
We study the large-scale distribution of the arrival directions of the highest energy cosmic rays observed by various experiments. Despite clearly insufficient statistics, we find a deficit of cosmic rays at energies higher than 10^{20} eV…
It is shown that the acceleration of particles by a powerful relativistic jet associated with the activity of a supermassive black hole in the Galactic center several million years ago may explain the observed cosmic ray spectrum at…
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…
We argue that if ultrahigh-energy (E > 10^10 GeV) cosmic rays are heavy nuclei (as indicated by existing data), then the pointing of cosmic rays to their nearest extragalactic sources is expected for 10^10.6 < E/GeV < 10^11. This is because…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely associated with the most energetic processes…
We shortly discuss several astrophysical scenarios leading to cosmic ray acceleration up to extremely high energies reaching the scale of 10^{20} eV. The processes suggested in the literature include acceleration at relativistic jet…
We consider the possibility of explaining the observed spectrum and composition of the cosmic rays with energies above $10^{17}$ eV in terms of two different extragalactic populations of sources in the presence of a turbulent intergalactic…
The origin of the particles in the highest energy end of the cosmic ray spectrum is discussed in the context of the wider problem of the origin of the whole cosmic radiation as observed at the Earth. In particular we focus our attention on…