Search for the sources of cosmic rays with energies above 1020 eV

Abstract

The sources of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs, E >1018 eV) are still unknown, mainly due to the loss of the direction to the source after the deflection of cosmic rays’ (CRs) trajectories in the galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields. With the increase in CR energy (rigidity), the influence of the magnetic field weakens; therefore, the most promising approach is to search for the sources of events with the highest energy. In our work, we expand the existing UHECR (E > 1020 eV) sample from 33 to 42 events by calibrating the AUGER events. The sample is characterized by the presence of an event triplet in a circle of radius 3°. The highest-energy event is still the shower (E = 3.2 × 1020 eV) detected with the Fly’s Eye fluorescent detector (FE-event) in 1993. The possible sources of the triplet and the FE-event are analyzed. Taking into account the deflection of CR trajectories in the extragalactic and galactic magnetic fields, it is shown that transient sources of the FE-event and the triplet may be galaxies with active star formation, where CRs are accelerated by newborn millisecond pulsars. Among the galactic sources, the potential candidates are young pulsars that might have had millisecond periods at birth and giant magnetar flares.