Testing Hadronic Models of Gamma Ray Production at the Core of Cen A

Abstract

Pierre Auger experiment has observed a few cosmic ray events above 55 EeV from the direction of the core of Cen A. These cosmic rays might have originated from the core of Cen A. High energy gamma ray emission has been observed by HESS from the radio core and inner kpc jets of Cen A. We are testing whether pure hadronic interactions of protons or heavy nuclei with the matter in the core region or photo-disintegration of heavy nuclei can explain the cosmic ray and high energy gamma ray observations from the core of Cen A. The scenario of $p-\gamma$ interactions followed by photo-pion decay has been tested earlier by Sahu et al. (2012) and found to be consistent with the observational results. In this paper we have considered some other possibilities (i) the primary cosmic rays at the core of Cen A are protons and the high energy gamma rays are produced in $p-p$ interactions,(ii) the primary cosmic rays are Fe nuclei and the high energy gamma rays are produced in $Fe-p$ interactions and (iii) the primary cosmic rays are Fe nuclei and they are photo-disintegrated at the core. The daughter nuclei de-excite and high energy gamma rays are produced.

10 pages, 2 figures, Published in Phys.Rev.D

References in corpus (9)

• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays from Black Hole Jets of Radio Galaxies
• High energy radiation from Centaurus A
• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Acceleration in Engine-driven Relativistic Supernovae
• TeV gamma-rays and neutrinos from photo-disintegration of nuclei in Cygnus OB2
• Hadronic-Origin TeV gamma-Rays and Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays from Centaurus A
• How many Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays could we expect from Centaurus A?
• PeV Gamma Rays from Interactions of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays in the Milky Way
• Gamma Rays from Centaurus A
• Chandra observations and classification of AGN-candidates correlated with Auger UHECRs

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Limits on X-ray Polarization at the Core of Centaurus A as Observed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer
• Ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray interactions as the origin of very high energy $\gamma -$rays from BL Lacs
• Very high-energy gamma-ray signature of ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray acceleration in Centaurus A
• Interpreting correlated observations of cosmic rays and gamma-rays from Centaurus A with a proton blazar inspired model
• Photo-Disintegration of Heavy Nuclei at the Core of Cen A