Origin of very high and ultra high energy cosmic rays

Abstract

While there is some level of consensus on a Galactic origin of cosmic rays up to the knee ($E_k\sim 3\times 10^{15}$ eV) and on an extragalactic origin of cosmic rays with energy above $\sim 10^{19}$ eV, the debate on the genesis of cosmic rays in the intermediate energy region has received much less attention, mainly because of the ambiguity intrinsic in defining such a region. The energy range between $10^{17}$ eV and $\sim 10^{19}$ eV is likely to be the place where the transition from Galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays takes place. Hence the origin of these particles, though being of the highest importance from the physics point of view, it is also one of the most difficult aspects to investigate. Here I will illustrate some ideas concerning the sites of acceleration of these particles and the questions that their investigation may help answer, including the origin of \underline{ultra} high energy cosmic rays.

Solicited Review Paper to appear in 'Comptes Rendus Physique'

References in corpus (7)

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Cited by in corpus (13)

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• The primary cosmic-ray energy spectrum measured with the Tunka-133 array
• Cosmic Ray Origins: An Introduction
• Neutrino Lighthouse at Sagittarius A*
• Neutron Majorana mass from exotic instantons
• Acceleration and propagation of ultra high energy cosmic rays
• The Earth-like Galactic cosmic ray intensity in the habitable zone of the M dwarf GJ 436
• Predictions of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Propagation in the Context of Homogeneously Modified Special Relativity
• Hadronic Interactions of Energetic Charged Particles in Protogalactic Outflow Environments and Implications for the Early Evolution of Galaxies
• Search for Sources of High Energy Neutrons with Four Years of Data from the IceTop Detector
• Are Cosmic Rays still a valuable probe of Lorentz Invariance Violations in the Auger era?
• Recent developments in cosmic ray physics
• Inverse problem for extragalactic transport of ultra-high energy cosmic rays