958 research outputs found
Cosmological Magnetic Fields from Primordial Helical Seeds
Most early Universe scenarios predict negligible magnetic fields on
cosmological scales if they are unprocessed during subsequent expansion of the
Universe. We present a new numerical treatment of the evolution of primordial
fields and apply it to weakly helical seeds as they occur in certain early
Universe scenarios. We find that initial helicities not much larger than the
baryon to photon number can lead to fields of about 10^{-13} Gauss with
coherence scales slightly below a kilo-parsec today.Comment: 4 revtex pages, 2 postscript figures include
Prompt neutrino fluxes in the atmosphere with PROSA parton distribution functions
Effects on atmospheric prompt neutrino fluxes of present uncertainties
affecting the nucleon composition are studied by using the PROSA fit to parton
distribution functions (PDFs). The PROSA fit extends the precision of the PDFs
to low x, which is the kinematic region of relevance for high-energy neutrino
production, by taking into account LHCb data on charm and bottom
hadroproduction. In the range of neutrino energies explored by present Very
Large Volume Neutrino Telescopes, it is found that PDF uncertainties are far
smaller with respect to those due to renormalization and factorization scale
variation and to assumptions on the cosmic ray composition, which at present
dominate and limit our knowledge of prompt neutrino fluxes. A discussion is
presented on how these uncertainties affect the expected number of atmospheric
prompt neutrino events in the analysis of high-energy events characterized by
interaction vertices fully contained within the instrumented volume of the
detector, performed by the IceCube collaboration.Comment: 36 pages, 17 figures, 1 tabl
Electron-, Mu-, and Tau-Number Conservation in a Supernova Core
We study if the neutrino mixing parameters suggested by the atmospheric
neutrino anomaly imply chemical equilibrium between mu- and tau-flavored
leptons in a supernova (SN) core. The initial flavor-conversion rate would
indeed be fast if the nu_mu-nu_tau-mixing angle were not suppressed by
second-order refractive effects. The neutrino diffusion coefficients are
different for nu_mu, anti-nu_mu, nu_tau and anti-nu_tau so that neutrino
transport will create a net mu and tau lepton number density. This will
typically lead to a situation where the usual first-order refractive effects
dominate, further suppressing the rate of flavor conversion. Altogether,
neutrino refraction has the nontrivial consequence of guaranteeing the separate
conservation of e, mu, and tau lepton number in a SN core on the infall and
cooling time scales, even when neutrino mixing angles are large.Comment: Slightly expanded version with improved presentation, no changes of
substanc
On The Origin of Very High Energy Cosmic Rays
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 particle acceleration at shock waves; 2) the transition from galactic
to extragalactic cosmic rays; 3) implications of up-to-date observations for
the origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs).Comment: Invited Review Article to appear in Modern Physics Letters A, Review
Sectio
Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Nuclei from Individual Magnetized Sources
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 from the observer, observable spectra and composition are
severely modified if the source is surrounded by fields of ~ 10^-7 Gauss on
scales of a few megaparsecs. Low energy particles diffuse over larger distances
during their energy loss time. This leads to considerable hardening of the
spectrum up to the energy where the loss distance becomes comparable to the
source distance. Magnetized sources thus have very important consequences for
observations, even if cosmic rays arrive within a few degrees from the source
direction. At the same time, details in spectra and chemical composition may be
intrinsically unpredictable because they depend on the unknown magnetic field
structure. If primaries are predominantly nuclei of atomic mass A accelerated
up to a maximum energy E_max with spectra not much softer than E^-2, secondary
protons from photo-disintegration can produce a conspicuous peak in the
spectrum at energy ~ E_max/A. A related feature appears in the average mass
dependence on energy.Comment: 15 pages, 16 ps figures, published version with minor changes, see
http://stacks.iop.org/1475-7516/2004/i=08/a=01
IceCube-Plus: An Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Telescope
While the first kilometer-scale neutrino telescope, IceCube, is under
construction, alternative plans exist to build even larger detectors that will,
however, b e limited by a much higher neutrino energy threshold of 10 PeV or
higher rather than 10 to 100 GeV. These future projects detect radio and
acoustic pulses as w ell as air showers initiated by ultra-high energy
neutrinos. As an alternative, we here propose an expansion of IceCube, using
the same strings, placed on a gri d with a spacing of order 500 m. Unlike other
proposals, the expanded detector uses methods that are understood and
calibrated on atmospheric neutrinos. Atmosp heric neutrinos represent the only
background at the energies under consideratio n and is totally negligible.
Also, the cost of such a detector is understood. We conclude that supplementing
the 81 IceCube strings with a modest number of addi tional strings spaced at
large distances can almost double the effective volume of the detector.
Doubling the number of strings on a 800 m grid can deliver a d etector that
this a factor of 5 larger for horizontal muons at modest cost.Comment: Version to be published in JCA
Constrained Simulations of the Magnetic Field in the Local Universe and the Propagation of UHECRs
We use simulations of LSS formation to study the build-up of magnetic fields
(MFs) in the ICM. Our basic assumption is that cosmological MFs grow in a MHD
amplification process driven by structure formation out of a seed MF present at
high z. Our LCDM initial conditions for the density fluctuations have been
statistically constrained by the observed galaxies, based on the IRAS 1.2-Jy
all-sky redshift survey. As a result, prominent galaxy clusters in our
simulation coincide closely with their real counterparts. We find excellent
agreement between RMs of our simulated clusters and observational data. The
improved resolution compared to previous work also allows us to study the MF in
large-scale filaments, sheets and voids. By tracing the propagation of UHE
protons in the simulated MF we construct full-sky maps of expected deflection
angles of protons with arrival energies E=1e20eV and 4e19eV, respectively.
Strong deflections are only produced if UHE protons cross clusters, however
covering only a small area on the sky. Multiple crossings of sheets and
filaments over larger distances may give rise to noticeable deflections,
depending on the model adopted for the magnetic seed field. Based on our
results we argue that over a large fraction of the sky the deflections are
likely to remain smaller than the present experimental angular sensitivity.
Therefore, we conclude that forthcoming air shower experiments should be able
to locate sources of UHE protons and shed more light on the nature of
cosmological MFs.Comment: 3revised version, JCAP, accepte
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