Intergalactic Magnetic Field and Arrival Direction of Ultra-High-Energy Protons

TL;DR

This study models how intergalactic magnetic fields influence the paths of ultra-high-energy protons, revealing large deflections and challenging the identification of their true sources through correlation with nearby active galactic nuclei.

Contribution

We developed a cosmological simulation-based model to analyze UHECR propagation and source correlation, highlighting the significant deflections caused by intergalactic magnetic fields.

Findings

Mean deflection angle of ~15° for super-GZK protons.

Closest AGNs are often not the true sources of UHECRs.

Less than one-third of UHECRs are from the nearest AGNs.

Abstract

We studied how the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) affects the propagation of super-GZK protons that originate from extragalactic sources within the local GZK sphere. Toward this end, we set up hypothetical sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic-rays (UHECRs), virtual observers, and the magnetized cosmic web in a model universe constructed from cosmological structure formation simulations. We then arranged a set of reference objects mimicking active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the local universe, with which correlations of simulated UHECR events are analyzed. With our model IGMF, the deflection angle between the arrival direction of super-GZK protons and the sky position of their actual sources is quite large with the mean value of $<\theta > \sim 15^{\circ}$ and the median value of $\tilde \theta \sim 7 - 10^{\circ}$. On the other hand, the separation angle between the arrival direction and the sky position of nearest reference objects is substantially smaller with $<S > \sim 3.5 - 4^{\circ}$, which is similar to the mean angular distance in the sky to nearest neighbors among the reference objects. This is a direct consequence of our model that the sources, observers, reference objects, and the IGMF all trace the matter distribution of the universe. The result implies that extragalactic objects lying closest to the arrival direction of UHECRs are not necessary their actual sources. With our model for the distribution of reference objects, the fraction of super-GZK proton events, whose closest AGNs are true sources, is less than 1/3. We discussed implications of our findings for correlation studies of real UHECR events.