Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays may come from clustered sources

Dec, 1999
12 pages
Published in:
  • Astrophys.J. 542 (2000) 543-547
e-Print:

Citations per year

1999200520112017202102468
Abstract:
Clustering of cosmic-ray sources affects the flux observed beyond the cutoff imposed by the cosmic microwave background and may be important in interpreting the AGASA, Fly's Eye, and HiRes data. The standard deviation, sigma, in the predicted number, N, of events above 10^{20} eV is sigma/N = 0.9(r_0/10 Mpc)^{0.9}, where r_0 is the unknown scale length of the correlation function (r_0 = 10 Mpc for field galaxies). Future experiments will allow the determination of r_0 through the detection of anisotropies in arrival directions of ~ 10^{20} eV cosmic-rays over angular scales of Theta ~ r_0/30 Mpc.
  • cosmic radiation: particle source
  • particle source: cluster
  • cosmic radiation: flux
  • correlation function
  • cosmic radiation: anisotropy
  • proposed experiment
  • numerical calculations: interpretation of experiments