Influence of the Galactic Magnetic Field on the Distribution of Ultra-high-Energy Cosmic Rays

  • Published : 2015.10.15

Abstract

Recently, the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO), the largest ground-based project for detecting ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), published their 10-year data. We can access an unprecedented number of UHECR data observed by the project, which give us a possibility to get an accurate statistical test result. In this work, we investigate the influence of the galactic magnetic field (GMF) on the distribution of UHECRs by searching the correlation with the large-scale structure (LSS) of the universe. We simulate the mock UHECR events whose trajectories from the sources would be deflected by the Gaussian smearing angle which reflects the influence by the GMF. By the statistical test, we compare the correlation between the expected/observed distribution of UHECRs and the LSS of the universe in the regions of sky divided by the galactic latitude, varying the smearing angle. Here, we assume the deflections by the GMF are mainly dependent on the galactic latitude. Using the maximum likelihood estimation, we find the best-fit smearing angle in each region. If we get a trend that best-fit smearing angles differ from each region, the influence of GMF may be stronger than that of intergalactic magnetic fields (IGMF) because it is known that the distribution of IGMF follows the LSS of the universe. Also, we can estimate the strength of the GMF using the best-fit parameter by the maximum likelihood.

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