Extremely high energy cosmic rays

Physics – Nuclear Physics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

1

Scientific paper

The evidence for the existence of cosmic rays with energies in excess of 1020 eV is now overwhelming. There is so far no indication of the GZK cutoff in the energy spectrum at 5× 1019 eV. This conclusion is not firm for lack of statistics. A cutoff would be expected if the sources of the cosmic rays were distributed uniformly throughout the cosmos. The sources of cosmic rays with energy above the GZK cutoff must be at a distance <= 100 Mpc, and if they are protons they are very likely to point to these sources. There are no easy explanations how known astrophysical objects can accelerate protons (or atomic nuclei) to these energies. This difficulty has led to speculation that there may be exotic sources such as topological defects which produce these energetic cosmic rays directly along with a copious supply of neutrinos of similar energy. The fluxes of these cosmic rays is very low and large instruments are required to observe them even with modest statistics. One such instrument, the Pierre Auger Observatory, is described. It is designed for all-sky coverage and the construction of its southern site will begin in Argentina in 1999

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Extremely high energy cosmic rays does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Extremely high energy cosmic rays, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Extremely high energy cosmic rays will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1823708

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.