On origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays

Abstract

Propagation of UHE protons through CMB radiation leaves the imprint on energy spectrum in the form of Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff, bump (pile-up protons) and dip. The dip is a feature in energy range 1×1018–4×1019 eV, caused by electron-positron pair production on CMB photons. Calculated for power-law generation spectrum with index γ g =2.7, the shape of the dip is confirmed with high accuracy by data of Akeno—AGASA, HiRes, Yakutsk and Fly’s Eye detectors. The predicted shape of the dip is robust: it is valid for the rectilinear and diffusive propagation, for different discretenesses in the source distribution, for local source overdensity and deficit etc. This property of the dip allows us to use it for energy calibration of the detectors. The energy shift λ for each detector is determined by minimum χ 2 in comparison of observed and calculated dip. After this energy calibration the absolute fluxes, measured by AGASA, HiRes and Yakutsk detectors remarkably coincide in energy region 1×1018–1×1020 eV. Below the characteristic energy E c ≈1×1018 eV the spectrum of the dip flattens for both diffusive and rectilinear propagation, and more steep galactic spectrum becomes dominant at E<E c . The energy of transition E tr<E c approximately coincides with the position of the second knee E 2kn , observed in the cosmic ray spectrum. The dip-induced transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays at the second knee is compared with traditional model of transition at ankle, the feature observed at energy ∼1×1019 eV.