19 research outputs found
A dip in the UHECR spectrum and the transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays
The dip is a feature in the diffuse spectrum of ultra-high energy (UHE)
protons caused by electron-positron pair production on the cosmic microwave
background (CMB) radiation. For a power-law generation spectrum , the
calculated position and shape of the dip is confirmed with high accuracy by the
spectra observed by the Akeno-AGASA, HiRes, Yakutsk and Fly's Eye detectors.
When the particle energies, measured in these detectors, are calibrated by the
dip, their fluxes agree with a remarkable accuracy. The predicted shape of the
dip is quite robust. The dip is only modified strongly when the fraction of
nuclei heavier than protons is high at injection, which imposes some
restrictions on the mechanisms of acceleration operating in UHECR sources. The
existence of the dip, confirmed by observations, implies that the transition
from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays occurs at E \lsim 1\times 10^{18}
eV. We show that at energies lower than a characteristic value eV, the spectrum of extragalactic cosmic rays
flattens in all cases of interest, and it provides a natural transition to a
steeper galactic cosmic ray spectrum. This transition occurs at some energy
below , corresponding to the position of the so-called second knee.
We discuss extensively the constraints on this model imposed by current
knowledge of acceleration processes and sources of UHECR and compare it with
the traditional model of transition at the ankle.Comment: Version Accepted for Publication in Astroparticle Physics (minor
changes
On astrophysical solution to ultra high energy cosmic rays
We argue that an astrophysical solution to UHECR problem is viable. The
pectral features of extragalactic protons interacting with CMB are calculated
in model-independent way. Using the power-law generation spectrum as the only assumption, we analyze four features of the proton
spectrum: the GZK cutoff, dip, bump and the second dip. We found the dip,
induced by electron-positron production on CMB, as the most robust feature,
existing in energy range eV. Its shape is
stable relative to various phenomena included in calculations. The dip is well
confirmed by observations of AGASA, HiRes, Fly's Eye and Yakutsk detectors. The
best fit is reached at , with the allowed range 2.55 - 2.75. The
dip is used for energy calibration of the detectors. After the energy
calibration the fluxes and spectra of all three detectors agree perfectly, with
discrepancy between AGASA and HiRes at eV being not
statistically significant. The agreement of the dip with observations should be
considered as confirmation of UHE proton interaction with CMB. The dip has two
flattenings. The high energy flattening at eV
automatically explains ankle. The low-energy flattening at eV provides the transition to galactic cosmic rays. This transition is
studied quantitatively. The UHECR sources, AGN and GRBs, are studied in a
model-dependent way, and acceleration is discussed. Based on the agreement of
the dip with existing data, we make the robust prediction for the spectrum at
eV to be measured in the nearest future by
Auger detector.Comment: Revised version as published in Phys.Rev. D47 (2006) 043005 with a
small additio
Small Scale Anisotropy Predictions for the Auger Observatory
We study the small scale anisotropy signal expected at the Pierre Auger
Observatory in the next 1, 5, 10, and 15 years of operation, from sources of
ultra-high energy (UHE) protons. We numerically propagate UHE protons over
cosmological distances using an injection spectrum and normalization that fits
current data up to \sim 10^{20}\eV. We characterize possible sources of
ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) by their mean density in the local
Universe, Mpc, with between 3 and 6.
These densities span a wide range of extragalactic sites for UHECR sources,
from common to rare galaxies or even clusters of galaxies. We simulate 100
realizations for each model and calculate the two point correlation function
for events with energies above 4 \times 10^{19}\eV and above 10^{20}\eV, as
specialized to the case of the Auger telescope. We find that for r\ga 4,
Auger should be able to detect small scale anisotropies in the near future.
Distinguishing between different source densities based on cosmic ray data
alone will be more challenging than detecting a departure from isotropy and is
likely to require larger statistics of events. Combining the angular
distribution studies with the spectral shape around the GZK feature will also
help distinguish between different source scenarios.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, 6 tables, submitted to JCA
GZK Photons Above 10 EeV
We calculate the flux of "GZK-photons", namely the flux of photons produced
by extragalactic nucleons through the resonant photoproduction of pions, the so
called GZK effect. This flux depends on the UHECR spectrum on Earth, of the
spectrum of nucleons emitted at the sources, which we characterize by its slope
and maximum energy, on the distribution of sources and on the intervening
cosmological backgrounds, in particular the magnetic field and radio
backgrounds. For the first time we calculate the GZK photons produced by
nuclei. We calculate the possible range of the GZK photon fraction of the total
UHECR flux for the AGASA and the HiRes spectra. We find that for nucleons
produced at the sources it could be as large as a few % and as low as 10^{-4}
above 10 EeV. For nuclei produced at the sources the maximum photon fraction is
a factor of 2 to 3 times smaller above 10 EeV but the minimum could be much
smaller than for nucleons. We also comment on cosmogenic neutrino fluxes.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures (21 panels), iopart.cls and iopart12.clo needed
to typese
Composition of UHECR and the Pierre Auger Observatory Spectrum
We fit the recently published Pierre Auger ultra-high energy cosmic ray
spectrum assuming that either nucleons or nuclei are emitted at the sources. We
consider the simplified cases of pure proton, or pure oxygen, or pure iron
injection. We perform an exhaustive scan in the source evolution factor, the
spectral index, the maximum energy of the source spectrum Z E_{max}, and the
minimum distance to the sources. We show that the Pierre Auger spectrum agrees
with any of the source compositions we assumed. For iron, in particular, there
are two distinct solutions with high and low E_{max} (e.g. 6.4 10^{20} eV and 2
10^{19} eV) respectively which could be distinguished by either a large
fraction or the near absence of proton primaries at the highest energies. We
raise the possibility that an iron dominated injected flux may be in line with
the latest composition measurement from the Pierre Auger Observatory where a
hint of heavy element dominance is seen.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures (33 panels)- Uses iopart.cls and iopart12.clo- In
version 2: addition of a few sentences and two reference
Implications of the cosmic ray spectrum for the mass composition at the highest energies
The significant attenuation of the cosmic-ray flux above eV
suggests that the observed high-energy spectrum is shaped by the so-called GZK
effect. This interaction of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with the
ambient radiation fields also affects their composition. We review the effect
of photo-dissociation interactions on different nuclear species and analyze the
phenomenology of secondary proton production as a function of energy. We show
that, by itself, the UHECR spectrum does not constrain the cosmic-ray
composition at their extragalactic sources. While the propagated composition
(i.e., as observed at Earth) cannot contain significant amounts of intermediate
mass nuclei (say between He and Si), whatever the source composition, and while
it is vastly proton-dominated when protons are able to reach energies above
eV at the source, we show that the propagated composition can be
dominated by Fe and sub-Fe nuclei at the highest energies, either if the
sources are very strongly enriched in Fe nuclei (a rather improbable
situation), or if the accelerated protons have a maximum energy of a few
eV at the sources. We also show that in the latter cases, the
expected flux above eV is very much reduced compared to the case
when protons dominate in this energy range, both at the sources and at Earth.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure