Abstract
The origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) is still an open question in astroparticle physics. TeV blazars are a small group of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). They all have been observed in TeV gamma ray band, and show violent variabilities in flux at all wavelengths. So it is believed that they have abilities to produce UHECRs. To judge whether the TeV blazars can be the candidates of the origin of UHECRs, we collect the information of emission region of 38 TeV blazars, and estimate the maximum energy that the charged particle can be accelerated there. The results show that TeV blazars have abilities to accelerate cosmic rays to the energy above 1018 eV, some even higher than 1020 eV, and they may be the sources of UHECRs.
Highlights
The earth’s atmosphere is being constantly bombarded by elementary particles from outer space, historically called cosmic rays
Accurate measurement shows that the spectrum is structured with four noticeable features: the knee is around 3 - 5 × 1015 eV, the second knee is at 4 × 1018 eV [1]-[3], the ankle is near 3 × 1018 eV [3] [4], GZK cutoff is above 4 - 5 × 1019 eV [5] [6] which has been observed independently by High Resolution Fly’s Eye (HiRes) and Auger experiments [4] [7]
The results show that TeV blazars meet this basic criterion, and they can accelerate protons and irons up to ultra high energies
Summary
The earth’s atmosphere is being constantly bombarded by elementary particles from outer space, historically called cosmic rays. Their discovery dates back to the beginning of the 20th century and they have been continuously studied by particle physicists and astrophysicists. The spectrum of cosmic rays extends smoothly over 11 orders of magnitude, from less than 109 eV to over 1020 eV. Over this large energy range the spectrum falls off approximately by an E−3 power law. At the lower energies this flux is high enough for direct satellite or bal-
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