ON ACCELERATION AND PROPAGATION OF ULTRA-HIGH ENERGY COSMIC RAYS

This paper discusses the correlation reported in 2008 by the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) of the arrival directions of the highest energy cosmic rays with active galactic nuclei (AGN). It is argued that these correlating AGN do not have the power required to be the sources of ultra-high energy protons. This current PAO dataset is further shown to disfavor giant radio-galaxies (both Fanaroff–Riley type I and II) as sources of ultra-high energy protons. The current data thus likely point to the local large scale structure, in which the actual sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays camouflage. Finally, it is shown that the last gamma-ray burst in Centaurus A could explain, through rescattering on the Cen A lobes, the apparent cluster of events in this direction.