Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, including their acceleration, propagation, detection methods, and recent observational results from major observatories, highlighting the mystery of their origins.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of UHECR physics, including acceleration mechanisms, propagation, detection techniques, and recent experimental findings, serving as an educational resource.

Findings

Detection of UHECRs at energies above 10^17 eV

Observational data from Telescope Array and Pierre Auger Observatory

Insights into particle interactions at ultra-high energies

Abstract

The origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) with energies above E > 1017eV, is still unknown. The discovery of their sources will reveal the engines of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. This is a written version of a series of lectures devoted to UHECR at the 2013 CERN-Latin-American School of High-Energy Physics. We present an introduction to acceleration mechanisms of charged particles to the highest energies in astrophysical objects, their propagation from the sources to Earth, and the experimental techniques for their detection. We also discuss some of the relevant observational results from Telescope Array and Pierre Auger Observatory. These experiments deal with particle interactions at energies orders of magnitude higher than achieved in terrestrial accelerators.