Ultra-high energy cosmic rays are the highest energy particles in the universe, and their energy is more than one million times greater than what humans can achieve.
Professor Farrar proposes that the merger of binary neutron stars is the source of all or most ultra-high energy cosmic rays. This scenario can explain the unprecedented, mysterious range of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, as the jets of binary neutron star mergers are generated by gravity-driven dynamos and therefore are roughly the same due to the narrow range of binary neutron star masses. Image credit: Osaka Metropolitan University / L-Insight, Kyoto University / Riunosuke Takeshige.
The existence of ultra-high energy cosmic rays has been known for nearly 60 years, but astrophysicists have not been able to formulate a satisfactory explanation of the origins that explain all observations to date.
A new theory introduced by Glennnies Farrer at New York University provides a viable and testable explanation of how ultra-high energy cosmic rays are created.
“After 60 years of effort, it is possible that the origins of the mysterious highest energy particles in the universe have finally been identified,” Professor Farrar said.
“This insight provides a new tool to understand the most intense events in the universe. The two neutron stars fuse to form a black hole. This is the process responsible for creating many valuable or exotic elements, including gold, platinum, uranium, iodine, and Zenon.”
Professor Farrer proposes that ultra-high energy cosmic rays are accelerated by the turbulent magnetic runoff of the dual neutron star merger, which was ejected from the remnants of the merger, before the final black hole formation.
This process simultaneously generates powerful gravitational waves. Some have already been detected by scientists from the Ligo-Virgo collaboration.
“For the first time, this work explains two of the most mystical features of ultra-high energy cosmic rays: the harsh correlation between energy and charge, and the extraordinary energy of just a handful of very high energy events,” Professor Farrar said.
“The results of this study are two results that can provide experimental validation in future work.
(i) Very high energy cosmic rays occur as rare “R process” elements such as Xenon and Tellurium, motivating the search for such components of ultra-high energy cosmic ray data.
(ii) Very high-energy neutrinos derived from ultra-high-energy cosmic ray collisions are necessarily accompanied by gravitational waves generated by the merger of proneutron stars. ”
study It will be displayed in the journal Physical Review Letter.
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Glennys R. Farrar. 2025. Merger of dichotomous neutron stars as the source of the finest energy cosmic rays. Phys. Pastor Rett 134, 081003; doi:10.1103/physrevlett.134.081003
Source: www.sci.news
