Investigation on mass composition of UHE cosmic rays using CRPropa 2.0

TL;DR

This study uses CRPropa 2.0 to simulate ultra-high-energy cosmic ray propagation, analyzing how their mass composition varies with energy and comparing results with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation of UHE cosmic ray propagation with specific source assumptions and compares the mass composition evolution with experimental observations.

Findings

Mass composition changes before and after the ankle.

Simulation results align with experimental data.

Provides insights into cosmic ray source characteristics.

Abstract

In this paper, we used the Monte Carlo code CRPropa version 2.0 to simulate the propagation of UHE cosmic rays. In the simulation, uniform cosmic ray sources with spectral indices of {\alpha} = 1.4, {\alpha} = 2 and Emax = 1021 eV for pure iron composition at the source position are assumed. We obtained the logarithmic average mass of cosmic rays as a function of energy and compared it with the experimental values in the ankle, and we demonstrated how the mass composition changes before and after the ankle.