Predicted power in ultra high energy cosmic rays from active galaxies

TL;DR

This paper presents a new method to predict ultra high energy cosmic ray fluxes and energies from active galaxies, analyzing source candidates and magnetic effects to interpret observed cosmic ray distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a three-step modeling approach combining source activity, cosmic ray propagation, and statistical comparison with observations, focusing on radio galaxies and gamma-ray bursts.

Findings

Few radio galaxies are viable UHECR sources based on flux.

Many gamma-ray bursts could be sources, requiring minimal magnetic scattering.

Southern sky flux mainly from radio galaxies; northern from GRBs.

Abstract

Context: As more and more data are collected by cosmic ray experiments such as the Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array (TA), the search for the sources of the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) continues. Already we have some hints about the sources or type of sources involved and more work is required to confirm any of this. Aims: We intend to predict the UHECR fluxes and the maximal energies of particles from two complete samples of nearby active galaxies, selected at radio and far-infrared frequencies. Also, we investigate the magnetic scattering of the UHECR path in the intervening cosmic space. Methods: We propose here a new method of searching for the sources of the UHECR in three steps, first we model the activity of the type of sources and get the flux of UHECR and a maximal energy for particle acceleration, then we model the interaction and angle deflection in the intergalactic space and finally we simulate the distribution of the cosmic rays events that can be statistically compared with future data of the cosmic rays observatories. Results: We analyzed two classes of sources, gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and Radio Galaxies (RGs). Ordering by the UHECR flux, few RGs are viable candidates, as for GRB many sources are viable candidates, requiring less scattering of the particles along their path to Earth to interpret the presently observed sky distribution. Most of the flux from RGs comes from the Southern sky, and most of the flux of particles from GRB comes from the North, although the differences are so small as to require large statistics to confirm this. The intergalactic and Galactic magnetic fields may help to distinguish the two extreme cases, also pure protons from heavy nuclei at the same energy. As a consequence flat spectrum radio sources such as 3C279 should confirm the production of UHECR in this class of sources through energetic neutrinos.