2017/02/05 by Andrei Galiautdinov, David Finkelstein, Galiautdinov, Andrei +1
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Particle Accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1702.01457
3 pages, 2 figures; the last draft version (dated June 18, 2014) of an unpublished paper; submitted as is
arxiv created 2017/02/05 · openalex publication_date 2017/02/05 · arxiv updated 2017/02/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose a one-shot mechanism for high-energy cosmic ray generation by a neutron star falling into a black hole surrounded by low density plasma. The function of the black hole in this scenario is to accelerate the star to a speed arbitrarily close to that of light. When the star - essentially, a magnetized sphere - approaches the horizon it imparts energy to the ambient plasma charges via the induced electric field. Disregarding radiation losses, for iron nucleus, a simple estimate gives energies on the order of 1019 eV for stars with magnetic fields as weak as 106 teslas. The proposed mechanism should also work in chance encounters between rapidly moving neutron stars and molecular clouds. The rarity of such encounters may explain the apparent randomness and rarity of the high-energy cosmic ray events.