2011/03/31 by Luis A. Anchordoqui, Haim Goldberg, T. Weiler +1 · 18 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Atomic physics #Auger #Cosmic ray #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Energy (signal processing) #Flux (metallurgy) #Galaxy #Luminosity #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutron #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Optics #Physics #Pierre Auger Observatory #Proton #astro-ph.HE #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.84.067301
published in Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields 84(6) (American Physical Society) · To be published in PRD
arxiv created 2011/08/13 · openalex publication_date 2011/09/01 · arxiv updated 2011/09/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We propose that neutron emission from Cen A dominates the cosmic ray sky at the high end of the spectrum. Neutrons that decay generate proton diffusion fronts, whereas those that survive decay produce an angular spike in the direction of the source. We use recent data reported by the Pierre Auger Collaboration to normalize the injection spectrum and estimate the required luminosity in cosmic rays. We find that such a luminosity, LCR\ensuremath∼5\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi1040 erg/s, is comfortably smaller than the bolometric luminosity of Cen A, Lbol\ensuremath∼1043 erg/s. We compute the incoming current flux density as viewed by an observer on Earth, and we show that the anisotropy amplitude is in agreement with data at the 1\ensuremathσ level. Regardless of the underlying source model, our results indicate that after a decade of data taking the Pierre Auger Observatory will be able to test our proposal.