Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays from Black Hole Jets of Radio Galaxies
arXiv:0811.1160 · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/11/6/065016
Abstract
The Auger Collaboration reports that the arrival directions of >60 EeV ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) cluster along the supergalactic plane and correlate with active galactic nuclei (AGN) within ~100 Mpc. The association of several events with the nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A supports the paradigm that UHECRs are powered by supermassive black-hole engines and accelerated to ultra-high energies in the shocks formed by variable plasma winds in the inner jets of radio galaxies. The GZK horizon length of 75 EeV UHECR protons is ~100 Mpc, so that the Auger results are consistent with an assumed proton composition of the UHECRs. In this scenario, the sources of UHECRs are FR II radio galaxies and FR I galaxies like Cen A with scattered radiation fields that enhance UHECR neutral-beam production. Radio galaxies with jets pointed away from us can still be observed as UHECR sources due to deflection of UHECRs by magnetic fields in the radio lobes of these galaxies. A broadband ~1 MeV -- 10 EeV radiation component in the spectra of blazar AGN is formed by UHECR-induced cascade radiation in the extragalactic background light (EBL). This emission is too faint to be seen from Cen A, but could be detected from more luminous blazars.
21 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in focus issue on "High Energy Cosmic Rays" in New Journal of Physics, ed. M. Teshima and A. Watson. Corrected Figs. 1 and 2, added acknowledgment
References in corpus (24)
- Synchrotron Self-Compton Analysis of TeV X-ray Selected BL Lacertae Objects
- Rapid variability in TeV blazars: the case of PKS 2155-304
- High-energy Particle Acceleration and Production of Ultra-high-energy Cosmic Rays in the Giant Lobes of Centaurus A
- Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays from Black Hole Jets of Radio Galaxies
- Search for Correlations between HiRes Stereo Events and Active Galactic Nuclei
- High-energy Cosmic Rays and Neutrinos from Semi-relativistic Hypernovae
- Reconstruction of Longitudinal Profiles of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Showers from Fluorescence and Cherenkov Light Measurements
- High energy radiation from Centaurus A
- On the ultra-high energy cosmic ray horizon
- The Unified Model of Active Galactic Nuclei: I. Non-hidden Broad Line Region Seyfert 2 and Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies
- Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays, Spiral galaxies and Magnetars
- Ultra-high energy Neutrinos from Centaurus A and the Auger hot spot
- On Active Galactic Nuclei as Sources of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
- Absorption of Nuclear Gamma-rays on the Starlight Radiation in FR I Sources: the Case of Centaurus A
- Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays from the Radio Lobes of AGNs
- The Spectral Shape and Photon Fraction as Signatures of the GZK-Cutoff
- Nonthermal Synchrotron Radiation from Gamma Ray Burst External Shocks and the X-ray Flares Observed with Swift
- Gamma Rays from Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays in Cygnus A
- Broadband X-ray spectrum of the newly discovered broad line radio galaxy IGR J21247+5058
- Correlation of the HIghest Energy Cosmic Rays with the Supergalactic Plane
- Gamma Rays from Centaurus A
- Compton X-ray and Gamma-ray Emission from Extended Radio Galaxies
- GZK Horizons and the Recent Pierre Auger Result on the Anisotropy of Highest-energy Cosmic Ray Sources
- GZK Horizons and the Anisotropy of Highest-energy Cosmic Ray Sources