Related papers: General constraints on sources of high-energy cosm…
We review basic constraints on the acceleration of ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic rays (CRs) in astrophysical sources, namely the geometrical (Hillas) criterion and restrictions from radiation losses in different acceleration regimes. Using…
The origin of the highest energy cosmic rays is still unknown. The discovery of their sources will reveal the workings of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. Current observations show a spectrum consistent with an…
The bulk of observed ultrahigh energy cosmic rays could be light or heavier elements, and originate from an either steady or transient population of sources. This leaves us with four general categories of sources. Energetic requirements set…
We find the general requirements, set by classical electrodynamics, to the sources of extremely high-energy cosmic rays (EHECRs). It is shown that the parameters of EHECR accelerators are strongly limited not only by the particle…
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…
A fundamental question that can be answered in the next decade is: WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE HIGHEST ENERGY COSMIC PARTICLES? The discovery of the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays will reveal the workings of the most energetic…
The majority of the highest energy cosmic rays are thought to be electrically charged: protons or nuclei. Charged particles experience angular deflections as they pass through galactic and extra-galactic magnetic fields. As a consequence…
Using the propagation of ultra high energy nucleons, photons and electrons in the universal radiation backgrounds, we obtain limits on the luminosity of topological defects scenarios for the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays. The…
The origin of the highest-energy cosmic rays remains a mystery. The lack of a high energy cutoff in the cosmic ray spectrum together with an apparently isotropic distribution of arrival directions have strongly constrained most models…
The origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays promises to lead us to a deeper understanding of the structure of matter. This is possible through the study of particle collisions at center-of-mass energies in interactions far larger than…
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…
We investigate the dependence of composition, spectrum and angular distributions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays above 10^19 eV from individual sources on their magnetization. We find that, especially for sources within a few megaparsecs…
We explore two generic hypotheses for tracing the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) in the Universe: star formation rate density or stellar mass density. For each scenario, we infer a set of constraints for the emission…
We compute the ultra-high energy cosmic ray horizon, i.e. the distance up to which cosmic ray sources may significantly contribute to the fluxes above a certain threshold on the observed energies. We obtain results both for proton and heavy…
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…
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…
Recent international efforts have brought us closer to unveiling the century old mystery of the origin of cosmic rays. Cosmic ray, gamma ray, and neutrino observatories are reaching the necessary sensitivity to study the highest energy…
High energy protons produced by various sources of cosmic rays, {\it e.g.} supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae, active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts participate in $p\gamma$ and $pp$ interactions. Although $pp$ interactions may…
Particles are accelerated to very high, non-thermal energies in space, solar, and astrophysical plasma environments. In cosmic ray physics, the "Hillas limit" is often used as a rough estimate (or the necessary condition) of the maximum…
The flux of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays reaching the Earth is affected by the interactions with the cosmic radiation backgrounds as well as with the magnetic fields that are present along their trajectories. We combine the SimProp cosmic…