Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays from Engine-driven Relativistic Supernovae

Abstract

AbstractThe sources of the highest energy cosmic rays remain an enigma half a century after their discovery. Understanding their origin is a crucial step in probing new physics at energies unattainable by terrestrial accelerators. They must be accelerated in the local universe as otherwise interaction with cosmic background radiations would severely deplete the flux of protons and nuclei at energies above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) limit. Hypernovae, nearby GRBs, AGNs and their flares have all been suggested and debated in the literature as possible sources. Type Ibc supernovae have a local sub-population with mildly relativistic ejecta which are known to be sub-energetic GRBs or X-Ray Flashes for sometime and more recently as those with radio afterglows but without detected GRB counterparts, such as SN 2009bb. In this talk we present the size-magnetic field evolution, baryon loading and energetics of SN 2009bb using its radio spectra obtained with VLA and GMRT. We show that the engine-driven SNe lie above the Hillas line and they can explain the characteristics of post-GZK UHECRs.