Tracing the Most Powerful Galactic Cosmic-ray Accelerators with the HAWC Observatory


Book Description

Abstract : Since Victor Hess's groundbreaking detection of cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere in 1912, the origins of these charged particles have remained an enduring mystery. Recent studies suggest that these cosmic rays are accelerated beyond Peta electronvolts by powerful astrophysical sources within our own galaxy. While the cosmic rays themselves are being deflected in all directions by magnetic fields, the gamma rays produced by them, being electrically neutral, travel to the observer in a straight line. They carry crucial information, allowing us to trace cosmic-ray accelerators within our galaxy. The High Altitude Water Chrenkov (HAWC) Observatory, located on the slopes of the Sierra Negra volcano near Puebla, surveys the gamma-ray sky with a duty cycle of over 95\%. A sensitivity to gamma rays ranging from about 100 GeV to beyond 100 TeV, coupled with a 2-steradian instantaneous field of view, makes HAWC one of the premier observatories for studying the most energetic galactic gamma-ray sources. The gamma-ray source eHWC J1825-134, passing the field of view of HAWC at a zenith angle of $32^{\circ}$, is located in the brightest region above 50~TeV in the HAWC data set. This region contains several astrophysical objects, including three pulsar wind nebulae powered by fast-spinning pulsars, a young star cluster, a gamma-ray binary system, and four supernova remnant shells. All these objects are capable of accelerating charged particles and contributing to the cosmic rays detected at Earth. This dissertation focuses on in-depth morphological and spectral studies within the eHWC J1825-134 region. Through a multi-source maximum likelihood analysis, we are able to separate gamma-ray emissions from different sources: the binary system LS 5039, PSR J1826-1254 and its associated pulsar wind nebulae, and the emission source HAWC J1825-134 which is either associated with PSR J1826-1334 or a young star cluster. The gamma-ray sources LS 5039 and HAWC J1825-134 are PeVatron candidates emitting to about 200 hundred TeV at least. Additionally, two TeV halo candidates surround PSR J1826-1334 and PSR J1813-1246.




The ubiquitous mechanism accelerating cosmic rays at all the energies


Book Description

The mechanism accelerating Cosmic rays in the milky way galaxy and galaxy clusters is identified and described. The acceleration of Cosmic rays is a purely electrostatic process which operate up to the maximum energies of 1023 ev in galaxy clusters. Galactic Cosmic rays are accelerated in a pervasive electrostatic field active in the whole galaxy except in restricted regions shielded by Interstellar and stellar plasma as, for instance, the region occupied by the Solar system. It is proved that the Energy spectrum of the Cosmic radiation in the milky way galaxy, in the region where the Solar system resides, has a constant Spectral index comprised between 2.64-2.68 and the maximum energies of galactic protons are 3.0 × 1019 ev. The agreement of these results with the experimental data is discussed in detail and highlighted. The various physical processes that maintain the stability of the electrostatic structure in the milky way galaxy are the same that generate the galactic magnetic field. Accordingly, the intensity, orientation and direction of the galactic magnetic field are evaluated. The results of the calculation are compared with the observation data, optical and mostly radio astronomi data. The accord of the intensity, orientation and direction of the observed magnetic field with calculation is excellent.




Frontiers in Cosmic Ray Research


Book Description

Without qualification, cosmic rays usually mean the primary cosmic rays of extra-terrestrial origin that continually bombard the earth and consist mostly of high-energy protons, about 9 percent helium and heavier nuclei, a small percentage of electrons, and some gamma rays. The energies of cosmic rays are well in excess of billions of electron volts. Secondary cosmic rays result from interactions between primary rays and atoms in the earth's atmosphere. Most cosmic rays probably originate from the Milky Way galaxy, but a small fraction come from the sun as evidenced by diurnal variations in the cosmic ray flux. This volume presents new research on cosmic rays.




Celestial Messengers


Book Description

The book describes from a historical point of view how cosmic rays were discovered. The book describes the research in cosmic rays. The main focus is on how the knowledge was gained, describing the main experiments and the conclusions drawn. Biographical sketches of main researchers are provided. Cosmic rays have an official date of discovery which is linked to the famous balloon flights of the Austrian physicist Hess in 1912. The year 2012 can therefore be considered the centenary of the discovery.




Acceleration and Propagation of Cosmic Rays in High-Metallicity Astrophysical Environments


Book Description

This thesis addresses the feasibility of the production of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays in starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei. These astrophysical objects were theoretically proposed as candidate sources a long time ago. Nevertheless, the interest in them has been recently renewed due to the observational data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array. In this work, a comprehensive review of the current status of the research on cosmic rays accelerators is provided, along with a summary of the principal concepts needed to connect these relativistic particles with electromagnetic and neutrino observations in the multi-messenger era. On one hand, the hypothesis of accelerating particles with energies above 1018 eV in starburst superwinds is carefully revisited, taking into account the constraints imposed by the most recent electromagnetic observations. On the other hand, an alternative new model for the gamma emission of the nearby active galaxy NGC 1068 is presented. The implications of the results of these studies are discussed in terms of the contemporary observatories and prospects for future experiments are offered.




Extensive Air Showers


Book Description

Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays carry information about their sources and the intervening medium apart from providing a beam of particles for studying certain features of high energy interactions currently inaccessible at man-made accelerators. They can at present be studied only via the extensive air showers (EAS's) they generate while passing through the Earth's atmosphere, since their fluxes are too low for the experiments of limited capability flown in balloons and satellites. The EAS is generated by a series of interactions of the primary cosmic ray and its progeny with the atmospheric nuclei. The exponential nature of the atmosphere spreads the air showers laterally over several hundreds of meters, thus enabling ground-based arrays of relatively inexpensive detectors to record and study them.This book describes the EAS phenomenology, the detectors and techniques used, and the latest results on the energy spectrum and composition of the primaries of EAS's and the results on high energy interactions obtained from EAS studies. It also describes the new TeV and PeV gamma ray astronomy (which has been developing over the past decade) and the newly emerging neutrino astronomy, which are related to the origin of cosmic rays.This book serves as an introduction as well as a reference for researchers in the field.










High Energy Cosmic Rays


Book Description

Graduate students entering the field and high-energy astrophysicists will find this an accessible cosmic-ray manual, Easy to read for the general astronomer, the first part describes the standard model of cosmic rays based on our understanding of modern particle physics. The acceleration scenario is presented in some detail in supernovae explosions as well as in the passage of cosmic rays through the Galaxy. Experimental data in the atmosphere as well as underground are compared with theoretical models. The second part is devoted to contemporary cosmic ray research like the analysis of shower phenomena, the end of the cosmic spectrum and high-energy neutrino astronomy.




Science with the New Generation of High Energy Gamma-Ray Experiments


Book Description

This book collects contributions presented in the seventh edition in a series of Workshop on High Energy Gamma-ray Experiments. The focus of the Workshop was on Gamma-ray Physics in the LHC Era. In order to understand the origin of the Universe reaserchers are nowadays using two powerful and complementary approaches. On one side radiation produced many years ago and now arriving to us from space, is studied with different experimental techniques. On the other one, particle accelerators can recreate in laboratory the high density high energy state present at the beginning of the Universe. Results are here presented from experiments in space, on earth and underground, regarding cosmic radiation.