Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays from Galactic Supernovae

Abstract

Suppose that even the highest energy cosmic rays (CRs) observed on Earth are protons accelerated in local Milky Way Galaxy sources, with few if any from more distant sources. In this paper we treat the problem that supernovae remnants likely produce protons with energies up to about a PeV, but CRs with 100s of EeV energy are observed. We assume with minimal comment the idea that `new physics' is at work and we accept that a CR's collision energy at the Earth exceeds its kinetic energy as it travels through the Galaxy. There is some evidence that the collision energy-kinetic energy difference has been seen at the Tevatron and LHC, but it is small enough to attribute to standard physics. This sets the threshold for energy bifurcation. Based on this threshold and the CR spectrum endpoint, a formula for collision energy as a function of kinetic energy is derived. With the function and the observed CR spectrum we can predict the average spectrum of CR sources. Also we can estimate the collision energies of proton beams as terrestrial particle accelerators advance and produce beams with higher kinetic energies.

8 pages. This version, version 2, is updated with results from the LHC and Tevatron. It contains new comments. The underlying calculation is simplified, but not fundamentally changed from version 1

References in corpus (8)

• Energy spectra of gamma-rays, electrons and neutrinos produced at proton-proton interactions in the very high energy regime
• Charged-particle multiplicities in pp interactions measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Measurement of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays above 10^18 eV using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• A detailed spectral and morphological study of the gamma-ray supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 with H.E.S.S
• Cosmic Rays from the Knee to the Highest Energies
• Measurement of underlying event characteristics using charged particles in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=900GeV$ and 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Beyond the myth of the supernova-remnant origin of cosmic rays
• Dual Phase Cosmic Rays