Efficiency of cosmic ray reflections from an ultrarelativistic shock wave

Abstract

The process of cosmic ray acceleration up to energies in excess of $10^{20}$ eV at relativistic shock waves with large Lorentz factors, $\Gamma \gg 1$ requires $\sim {\Gamma }^2$ particle energy gains at single reflections from the shock (cf. Gallant & Achterberg 1999). In the present comment, applying numerical simulations we address an efficiency problem arising for such models. The actual efficiency of the acceleration process is expected to be substantially lower than the estimates of previous authors.

3 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS (Letters)