Related papers: Cosmic Ray Acceleration by Relativistic Shocks: Li…
We discuss the most recent developments in our understanding of the acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays up to the highest energies. In particular we specialize our discussion to three issues: 1) developments in the theory of…
The mechanism accelerating cosmic rays in the Milky Way Galaxy and galaxy clusters is identified and described. The acceleration of cosmic rays is a purely electrostatic process which operates up to the maximum energies of $10^{23}$ eV in…
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 study of high energy cosmic rays is a diversified field of observational and phenomenological physics addressing questions ranging from shock acceleration of charged particles in various astrophysical objects, via transport properties…
Cosmic-rays are ubiquitous, but their origins are surprisingly difficult to understand. A review is presented of some of the basic issues common to cosmic particle accelerators and arguments leading to the likely importance of diffusive…
We discuss theoretical issues and experimental data that brought the ultra high energy cosmic rays in the list of Nature's greatest puzzles. After many years of research we still do not know how astrophysical acceleration processes can…
We derive constraints that must be satisfied by the sources of ~10^{15} to ~10^{18} eV cosmic rays, under the assumption that the sources are Galactic. We show that while these constraints are not satisfied by ordinary supernovae (SNe),…
The ultra-high energy cosmic rays observed at the Earth are most likely accelerated in extra-galactic sources. For the typical luminosities invoked for such sources, the electric current associated to the flux of cosmic rays that leave them…
High energy cosmic rays allow probing phenomena that are inacessible to accelerators. Observation of cosmic rays, presumebly protons, with energies beyond $4 \times 10^{19} eV$, the so-called Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cut-off, give…
It is proposed that the highest energy $\sim 10^{20}$eV cosmic ray primaries are protons, decay products of a long-lived progenitor which has propagated from typically $\sim 100$Mpc. Such a scenario can occur in e.g. SU(15) grand…
It is shown that our knowledge of the mass composition of cosmic rays is deficient at all energies above 10^17 eV. Systematic differences between different measurements are discussed and, in particular, it is argued that there is no…
When the ions are accelerated by the radiation pressure of the laser pulse, their velocity can not exceed the laser group velocity, in the case when it is less than the speed of light in vacuum. This is demonstrated in two cases…
The origin of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) is an open question. In this proceeding, we first review the general physical requirements that a source must meet for acceleration to 10-100 EeV, including the consideration that the…
Cosmic rays are the most energetic particles arriving at earth. Although most of them are thought to be accelerated by supernova remnants, the details of the acceleration process and its efficiency are not well determined. Here we show that…
We develop a theory to account for the cosmic ray spectrum between 1 GeV and 10^4 GeV following the earlier papers of this series. We use the basic concept that the cosmic ray particles are accelerated in a supernova shock that travels…
The question of the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays at relativistic shock waves is discussed in the light of results of recent Monte Carlo studies of the first-order Fermi particle acceleration (Niemiec & Ostrowski 2006, Niemiec et…
Observations of large-scale radio emissions prove the existence of shock accelerated cosmic-ray electrons in galaxy clusters, while the lack of detected $\gamma$-rays limits the acceleration of cosmic-ray protons in galaxy clusters. This…
In this lecture I give an overview of shock acceleration, interactions of high energy cosmic rays with, and propagation through, the background radiation, and the resulting electron-photon cascade. I argue that while the origin of the…
Foreshock disturbances -- large-scale (~1000 km to >30,000 km), transient (~5-10 per day - lasting ~10s of seconds to several minutes) structures [1,2] - generated by suprathermal (>100 eV to 100s of keV) ions [3,4] arise upstream of…
A mechanism of ultra-high energy cosmic ray acceleration in extragalactic radio sources, at the interface between the relativistic jet and the surrounding medium, is discussed as a supplement to the shock acceleration in `hot spots'. Due to…