Related papers: Constraining ultra-high-energy cosmic ray composit…
The origin of highest energy cosmic rays (UHECR) is yet unknown. In order to understand their propagation we determine the probability that an ultrahigh energy (above 5\cdot 10^{19} eV) proton created at a distance r with energy E arrives…
The origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs, $E>10^{18}$ eV) is still uncertain. However, great progress has been achieved due to the data taken by The Pierre Auger and Telescope Array observatories. The UHECR flux presents two…
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…
We briefly review sources of cosmic rays, their composition and spectra as well as their propagation in the galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields, both regular and fluctuating. A special attention is paid to the recent results of the…
The chemical composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays is a key question in particle astrophysics. The measured composition, inferred from the elongation rates of cosmic ray showers, looks in general very different from the initial…
We investigate the possibility that ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) originate from the annihilation of relic superheavy (SH) dark matter in the Galactic halo. In order to fit the data on UHECRs, a cross section of $<\sigma_Av>\sim…
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…
Detecting neutrinos and photons is crucial to identifying the sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), especially for transient sources. We focus on ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray emission from transient sources such as gamma-ray…
It is difficult for conventional sources to accelerate cosmic ray particles to the highest energies that have been observed. Topological defects such as monopoles and strings overcome this difficulty, because their natural energy scale is…
The flux and nuclear composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays depend on the cosmic distribution of their sources. Data from cosmic ray observatories are yet inconclusive about their exact location or distribution, but provide a measure…
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…
Understanding the acceleration of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays is one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics. In this short review, we summarize the general observational constraints on their composition, spectrum and…
The Galactic magnetic field, locally observed to be on the order of a few $\mu$G, is sufficiently strong to induce deflections in the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. We present a method that establishes measures of…
The clustering of ultra high energy (above 5\cdot 10^{19} eV) cosmic rays (UHECR) suggests that they might be emitted by compact sources. We present a statistical analysis on the source density based on the multiplicities. The propagation…
We propose a new method for the estimation of ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) mass composition from a distribution of their arrival directions. The method employs a test statistic (TS) based on a characteristic deflection of UHECR…
Measurements of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) suggest a complex composition with significant contributions from heavy nuclei at the highest energies. We systematically explore how the selection and number of primary nuclei included…
Ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), with energies above ~6 x 10^19 eV, seem to show a weak correlation with the distribution of matter relatively near to us in the universe. It has earlier been proposed that UHECRs could be accelerated…
The observation of the diffuse Galactic gamma ray flux is the most powerful tool to study cosmic rays in different regions of the Galaxy, because the energy and angular distributions of the photons encode information about the density and…
From deflections in galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields energy dependent structures in the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) are expected. We propose to characterize these structures by the strength of…
Detecting and characterizing the anisotropy pattern of the arrival directions of the highest energy cosmic rays are crucial steps towards the identification of their sources. We discuss a possible distortion of the cosmic ray flux induced…