The Intergalactic Propagation of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Nuclei: An Analytic Approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytic method to calculate the spectrum and composition of ultra-high energy cosmic ray nuclei arriving at Earth, simplifying the complex propagation modeling traditionally done with Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel analytic approach for modeling the propagation of heavy nuclei cosmic rays, reducing reliance on computationally intensive numerical methods.

Findings

Analytic results agree well with Monte Carlo simulations.

The method effectively predicts spectrum and composition at Earth.

Provides a faster alternative for cosmic ray propagation studies.

Abstract

It is likely that ultra-high energy cosmic rays contain a significant component of heavy or intermediate mass nuclei. The propagation of ultra-high energy nuclei through cosmic radiation backgrounds is more complicated than that of protons and its study has required the use of Monte Carlo techniques. We present an analytic method for calculating the spectrum and the composition at Earth of ultra-high energy cosmic rays which start out as heavy nuclei from their extragalactic sources. The results obtained are in good agreement with those obtained using numerical methods.