Related papers: Cosmic Ray Generation by Quasar Remnants: Constrai…
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…
Supernova remnants are widely believed to be a principal source of galactic cosmic rays, produced by diffusive shock acceleration in the environs of the remnant's expanding shock. This review discusses recent modelling of how such energetic…
The origin of cosmic rays holds still many mysteries hundred years after they were first discovered. Supernova remnants have for long been the most likely sources of Galactic cosmic rays. I discuss here some recent evidence that suggests…
Cosmic ray collisions at high center of mass energy could enable graviton and black hole production as expected in theories of low-scale quantum gravity, such as extra-dimensions, many species, or some versions of string theory. Here we…
We review recent progress in our understanding of the physics of energetic particles in our Galaxy, in active galaxies such as starburst galaxies, in active galactic nuclei and in the jets and radio hot spots of powerful radio galaxies and…
The highest energy cosmic rays could be produced by drifts in magnetized, cylindrically collimated, sheared jets of powerful active galaxies (i.e. FR II radiogalaxies; radio loud quasars and high power BL Lacs). We show that in such…
The problem in identifying the sites of origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays (CRs) is reviewed. Recent observational evidence from very-high energy (VHE, energies above 100 GeV) gamma-ray measurements is in contradiction with the surmise that…
Cosmic rays are mostly composed of protons accelerated to relativistic speeds. When those protons encounter interstellar material, they produce neutral pions which in turn decay into gamma rays. This offers a compelling way to identify the…
If extra spacetime dimensions and low-scale gravity exist, black holes will be produced in observable collisions of elementary particles. For the next several years, ultra-high energy cosmic rays provide the most promising window on this…
If ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are accelerated at astrophysical point sources, the identification of such sources can be achieved if there is some kind of radiation at observable wavelengths that may be associated with the…
In Radio Super Novae (RSNe) a magnetic field of $(B \, \times \, r) \, = \, 10^{16.0 \pm 0.12} \, {\rm Gauss \, \times \, cm}$ is observed; these are the same numbers for Blue Super Giant (BSG) star explosions as for Red Super Giant (RSG)…
We investigate whether ultra--high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) may be preferentially produced in massive galaxy clusters, by looking for correlations between UHECR directions and those of x-ray clusters. We find an excess-above-random of…
The curvature radiation produced by particles accelerating near the event horizon of a spinning supermassive black hole, threaded by externally supported magnetic field lines is considered. It is shown that light nuclei suffer catastrophic…
In this article we examine the hypothesis that the highest energy cosmic rays are complex nuclei from extragalactic sources. Under reasonable physical assumptions, we show that the nearby metally rich starburst galaxies (M82 and NGC 253)…
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 origin of observed extremely high energy cosmic rays remains an astrophysical enigma. We show that a single evaporating primordial black hole should produce 8.5*10^14 particles over a 10^20 eV threshold. This emission results from…
We discuss processes in galactic cosmic ray (GCR) acceleration sites - supernova remnants, compact associations of young massive stars, and superbubbles. Mechanisms of efficient conversion of the mechanical power of the outflows driven by…
Active galaxies and gamma ray bursts are the sources of the highest energy photons detected by astronomical telescopes. We speculate that they may be the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays. This makes them true proton accelerators,…
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…
In General Relativity, there is a new field of activity concerning the study of charged stars. In a recent paper, Ray et al. have shown the possibility that the collapse of a charged star could form a charged black hole before all the…