53 research outputs found

    Images of Bursting Sources of High-Energy Cosmic Rays. I: Effects of Magnetic Fields

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    It has recently been shown that the highest energy cosmic rays (CRs) may originate in the same cosmological objects producing γ\gamma-ray bursts. This model requires the presence of intergalactic magnetic fields (IGMF) to delay the arrival times of ∼1020\sim 10^{20} eV CRs by 50 years or longer relative to the γ\gamma-rays, of an amplitude that is consistent with other observational constraints. Sources of CRs coming from individual bursts should be resolved with the planned ``Auger'' experiment, with as many as hundreds of CRs for the brightest sources. We analyze here the apparent angular and energy distribution of CRs from bright sources below the pion production threshold (in the energy range 1019eV<E<4×1019eV10^{19}{\rm eV} < E < 4\times10^{19}{\rm eV}) expected in this model. This observable distribution depends on the structure of the IGMF: the apparent spectral width ΔE\Delta E is small, ΔE/E≲1%\Delta E/E\lesssim1\%, if the intergalactic field correlation length λ\lambda is much larger than 1Mpc1{\rm Mpc}, and large, ΔE/E=0.3\Delta E/E=0.3, in the opposite limit λ≪1Mpc\lambda\ll 1{\rm Mpc}. The apparent angular size is also larger for smaller λ\lambda. If the sources of CRs we predict are found, they will corroborate the bursting model and they will provide us with a technique to investigate the structure of the IGMF.Comment: Submitted to the ApJL; 10 pages AASTeX, including 2 PostScript figure

    Gravitational Lensing in Clusters of Galaxies: New Clues Regarding the Dynamics of Intracluster Gas

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    Long arcs in clusters of galaxies, produced by gravitational lensing, can be used to estimate the mass interior to the arcs and therefore, constrain the cluster mass distribution. The radial density distribution of the intracluster gas (ICM) can be extracted from the X-ray surface brightness observations. If the gas temperature is also known, it is then possible to probe the dynamical state of the gas and test whether the ICM is in hydro- static equilibrium within the gravitational potential of the cluster as a result of thermal pressure support. We analyze three clusters that exhibit large arcs, whose X-ray surface brightness profiles have been observed, and whose gas temperatures have been determined. In two of the clusters, A2218 and A1689, the central mass implied by lensing is a factor of 22--2.52.5 too large for the gas at the observed temperature to be in hydrostatic equilibrium solely due to thermal pressure support. In other words, if we accept the mass estimate derived from the lensing analysis and demand that the X-ray surface brightness profile be consistent with the observations, the required gas temperature is a factor of 22--2.52.5 higher than observed. The results for the third cluster, A2163 (the most luminous and the hottest cluster known), are more ambiguous. The discrepancy between the X-ray and the lensing mass estimates arise because the presence of arcs imply a highly concentrated cluster mass distribution whereas the observed X-ray profiles imply a more extended mass distribution. The large X-ray core radii are not the result of the limited resolution of the X-ray detectors. We consider various possibilities that could account for the discrepancy.Comment: 20 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript, CITA/93/3
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