High-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos from semirelativistic hypernovae
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China)
The origin of the ultrahigh-energy (UHE) cosmic rays (CRs) from the second knee ({approx}6x10{sup 17} eV) above in the CR spectrum is still unknown. Recently, there has been growing evidence that a peculiar type of supernovae, called hypernovae, are associated with subenergetic gamma-ray bursts, such as SN1998bw/GRB980425 and SN2003lw/GRB031203. Such hypernovae appear to have high (up to mildly relativistic) velocity ejecta, which may be linked to the subenergetic gamma-ray bursts. Assuming a continuous distribution of the kinetic energy of the hypernova ejecta as a function of its velocity E{sub k}{proportional_to}({gamma}{beta}){sup -{alpha}} with {alpha}{approx}2, we find that (1) the external shock wave produced by the high-velocity ejecta of a hypernova can accelerate protons up to energies as high as 10{sup 19} eV; (2) the cosmological hypernova rate is sufficient to account for the energy flux above the second knee; and (3) the steeper spectrum of CRs at these energies can arise in these sources. In addition, hypernovae would also give rise to a faint diffuse UHE neutrino flux, due to p{gamma} interactions of the UHE CRs with hypernova optical-UV photons.
- OSTI ID:
- 21032420
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 76, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.76.083009; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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