Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays and Black Hole Mergers

Abstract

The recent detection of the gravitational wave source GW150914 by the LIGO collaboration motivates a speculative source for the origin of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays as a possible byproduct of the immense energies achieved in black hole mergers, provided that the black holes have spin as seems inevitable and there are relic magnetic fields and disk debris remaining from the formation of the black holes or from their accretion history. We argue that given the modest efficiency $<0.01$ required per event per unit of gravitational wave energy release, merging black holes potentially provide an environment for accelerating cosmic rays to ultrahigh energies.

4 pages, version to appear in ApJ Lett., minor changes, but one significant new point: connection made with fast radio bursts

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Cited by in corpus (30)

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• High-Energy Multi-Messenger Transient Astrophysics
• Astrophysics Uniquely Enabled by Observations of High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos
• The Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON): Performance and Science Program
• Ultrahigh-energy neutrino follow-up of Gravitational Wave events GW150914 and GW151226 with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Search for Multi-messenger Sources of Gravitational Waves and High-energy Neutrinos with Advanced LIGO during its first Observing Run, ANTARES and IceCube
• Constraints on cosmological viscosity and self interacting dark matter from gravitational wave observations
• Simulations of cosmic ray propagation
• GW150914-like Black Holes as Galactic High-Energy Sources
• Multi-Messenger Physics with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Can we observe neutrino flares in coincidence with explosive transients?
• Multi-band gravitational wave astronomy: science with joint space- and ground-based observations of black hole binaries
• Search for neutrinos in coincidence with gravitational wave events from the LIGO-Virgo O3a Observing Run with the Super-Kamiokande detector
• Localization of Binary Black-Hole Mergers with Known Inclination
• The POEMMA (Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics) Observatory
• H.E.S.S. follow-up observations of Binary Black Hole Coalescence events during the second and third Gravitational Waves observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Neutrino lighthouse powered by Sagittarius A* disk dynamo
• Search for neutrino counterparts to the gravitational wave sources from LIGO/Virgo O3 run with the ANTARES detector
• Fast radio burst repeaters produced via Kozai-Lidov feeding of neutron stars in binary systems
• Search for UHE Photons from Gravitational Wave Sources with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Constraints and prospects on GW and neutrino emissions using GW150914
• Constraints and prospects on gravitational wave and neutrino emission using GW150914
• Searches for neutrino counterparts of gravitational waves from the LIGO/Virgo third observing run with KM3NeT
• Size of Shell Universe in Light of Fermi GBM Transient Associated with GW150914
• Ultra-high energy neutrino searches and GW follow-up with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Collision of ultra-relativistic proton with strong magnetic field: production of ultra-high energy photons and neutrinos
• Aspects of astrophysical particle production and beyond the Standard Model phenomenology
• A photon observed by the SEDA-FIB detector on the arrival of the gravitational wave