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arXiv · 0805.0104

Cosmic Rays Above the Second Knee from Clusters of Galaxies and Associated High-Energy Neutrino Emission

Abstract

Accretion and merger shocks in clusters of galaxies are potential accelerators of high-energy protons, which can give rise to high-energy neutrinos through pp interactions with the intracluster gas. We discuss the possibility that protons from cluster shocks make a significant contribution to the observed cosmic rays in the energy range between the second knee around 10^17.5 eV and the ankle around 10^18.5 eV. The accompanying cumulative neutrino background above PeV may be detectable by upcoming neutrino telescopes such as IceCube or KM3NeT, providing a test of this scenario as well as a probe of cosmic-ray confinement properties in clusters.

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Kohta Murase, Susumu Inoue, Shigehiro Nagataki. 2008-10-28. Cosmic Rays Above the Second Knee from Clusters of Galaxies and Associated High-Energy Neutrino Emission. https://doi.org/10.1086/595882

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