A cosmic Zevatron based on cyclotron auto-resonance

Abstract

A Zevatron is an accelerator scheme envisaged to accelerate particles to ZeV energies (1 ZeV = $10^{21}$ eV). Schemes, most notably the internal shock model, have been proposed to explain the acceleration of ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray (UHECR) particles that have been sporadically detected reaching Earth since 1962. Here, the cyclotron auto-resonance acceleration (CARA) mechanism is tailored and used to demonstrate possible acceleration of particles ejected as a result of violent astrophysical processes such as the merger of a binary system or a supernova explosion. Such events result in emission of highly-energetic particles and ultra-intense beamed radiation. In the simultaneous presence of a super-strong magnetic field, the condition for cyclotron auto-resonance may be met. Thus CARA can act like a {\it booster} for particles pre-accelerated inside their progenitor by shock waves, possibly among other means. As examples, it is shown that nuclei of hydrogen, helium, and iron-56, may reach ZeV energies by CARA, under which conditions the particles, while gyrating around the lines of an ultra-strong magnetic field, also surf on the waves of a super-intense radiation field. When radiation-reaction is taken into account, it is shown that the ZeV energy gained by a particle can fall off by less than an order-of-magnitude if the resonance condition is missed by roughly less than 20\%.

References in corpus (52)

• Gravitational Waves and Gamma-rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A
• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Beaming in Gamma-Ray Bursts: Evidence for a Standard Energy Reservoir
• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Relativistic Jets
• Correlation of the highest energy cosmic rays with nearby extragalactic objects
• First Observation of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin Suppression
• Observation of the suppression of the flux of cosmic rays above 4x10^19eV
• High-energy particle acceleration in the shell of a supernova remnant
• Producing ultra-strong magnetic fields in neutron star mergers
• Experimental signatures of the quantum nature of radiation reaction in the field of an ultra-intense laser
• Indications of Intermediate-Scale Anisotropy of Cosmic Rays with Energy Greater Than 57 EeV in the Northern Sky Measured with the Surface Detector of the Telescope Array Experiment
• Intergalactic Photon Spectra from the Far IR to the UV Lyman Limit for $0<z<6$ and the Optical Depth of the Universe to High Energy Gamma-Rays
• Implications of Cosmological Gamma-Ray Absorption II. Modification of gamma-ray spectra
• A very luminous magnetar-powered supernova associated with an ultra-long gamma-ray burst
• A Study of Compact Object Mergers as Short Gamma-ray Burst Progenitors
• Teraelectronvolt Astronomy
• Discovery of very high energy gamma-ray emission coincident with molecular clouds in the W28 (G6.4-0.1) field
• Radiation Reaction Effects on Radiation Pressure Acceleration
• Measurement of the cosmic-ray energy spectrum above $2.5\times 10^{18}$ eV using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Features of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays above $2.5\times 10^{18}$ eV using the Pierre Auger Observatory
• The exceptionally powerful TeV gamma-ray emitters in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Most Probable Cause for the High Gamma-Ray Polarization in GRB 021206
• Linking High-Energy Cosmic Particles by Black-Hole Jets Embedded in Large-Scale Structures
• Radio Emission from Cosmic Ray Air Showers: Coherent Geosynchrotron Radiation
• Extragalactic propagation of ultrahigh energy cosmic-rays
• Plasma Wakefield Acceleration for Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays
• Gamma-ray burst jet breaks revisited
• Effects of Radiation-Reaction in Relativistic Laser Acceleration
• Cosmic-Ray and Neutrino Emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts with a Nuclear Cascade
• The dynamic ejecta of compact object mergers and eccentric collisions
• Radiation Reaction Effects on Electron Nonlinear Dynamics and Ion Acceleration in Laser-solid Interaction
• Radiation reaction of charged particles orbiting magnetized Schwarzschild black hole
• The Most Luminous Supernovae
• Particle Acceleration in Mildly Relativistic Shearing Flows: the Interplay of Systematic and Stochastic Effects, and the Origin of the Extended High-energy Emission in AGN Jets
• The Interpretation and Implication of the Afterglow of GRB 060218
• Analytic calculations of the spectra of ultra-high energy cosmic ray nuclei. I. The case of CMB radiation
• Highly Luminous Supernovae associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts I.: GRB 111209A/SN 2011kl in the Context of Stripped-Envelope and Superluminous Supernovae
• Analytic calculations of the spectra of ultra high energy cosmic ray nuclei. II. The general case of background radiation
• The ultraluminous GRB 110918A
• H.E.S.S. discovery of very high energy gamma-ray emission from PKS 0625-354
• Improved photomeson model for interactions of cosmic ray nuclei
• Astrophysical ZeV acceleration in the relativistic jet from an accreting supermassive blackhole
• Gamma Ray Bursts
• Magnetar Powered Ordinary Type IIP Supernovae
• Plasma wakefield excitation by incoherent laser pulses: a path towards high-average power laser-plasma accelerators
• Acceleration and propagation of ultra high energy cosmic rays
• Extremely efficient Zevatron in rotating AGN magnetospheres
• Filamentary jets as a cosmic-ray "Zevatron"
• High-quality multi-GeV electron bunches via cyclotron autoresonance
• Coherent Radiation in Gamma-Ray Bursts and Relativistic Collisionless Shocks
• Feasibility of electron cyclotron autoresonance acceleration by a short terahertz pulse
• Detecting the imprint of a kilonova or supernova \\ in short GRB afterglows