2015/08/31 by R. Alves Batista, Rafael Alves Batista, D. Boncioli +7 · 2 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Background radiation #COSMIC cancer database #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Cosmic background radiation #Cosmic ray #Monte Carlo method #Neutrino Physics Research #Photodisintegration #Spectrum (functional analysis) #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.IM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2015/10/063
Published as JCAP10(2015)063
openalex publication_date 2015/10/28 · arxiv created 2015/12/13 · arxiv updated 2015/12/15 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The results of simulations of extragalactic propagation of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) have intrinsic uncertainties due to poorly known physical quantities and approximations used in the codes. We quantify the uncertainties in the simulated UHECR spectrum and composition due to different models of extragalactic background light (EBL), different photodisintegration setups, approximations concerning photopion production and the use of different simulation codes. We discuss the results for several representative source scenarios with proton, nitrogen or iron at injection. For this purpose we used SimProp and CRPropa, two publicly available codes for Monte Carlo simulations of UHECR propagation. CRPropa is a detailed and extensive simulation code, while SimProp aims to achieve acceptable results using a simpler code. We show that especially the choices for the EBL model and the photodisintegration setup can have a considerable impact on the simulated UHECR spectrum and composition.