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arXiv · 2610.23393

Exploring Cosmic Rays from Gravity-Limited Acceleration at Supermassive Black Holes

Elena Manao·Elisa Resconi·Frank M. Rieger·Paolo Padovani·Gia Dvali
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Abstract

We show that horizon-scale magnetic fields around supermassive black holes (SMBHs), only limited by gravity, yield a universal, model-independent ceiling on electromagnetic energy density. For rotating SMBHs, this field enables particle acceleration up to $\sim\!10^{27}$\,eV set solely by fundamental constants. We identify a parameter space in accretion rate and magnetic field strength in which quiescent nuclei simultaneously satisfy the transparency conditions for Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) escape and the field requirements for reaching Ultra-High Energies (UHE), naturally complementing photon-rich Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), which favor neutrino production but suppress UHECR escape. We observe that, when including curvature energy losses, the energy of the primaries scales weakly as $E_{\rm curv}\!\propto\!M^{1/4}$ and allows to achieve UHE across different compositions and SMBHs masses ($10^6$--$10^{10}\,M_\odot$), without requiring extreme spins or super-Eddington accretion. A cross-correlation of the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) public data with galaxies hosting reliably measured SMBH masses, separating AGN from quiescent hosts, reveals marginal local excesses ($\lesssim\!2.8σ$) consistent with isotropy after correcting for the look-elsewhere effect. The framework provides a direct link between black-hole physics and the maximum energies of cosmic particles, and defines concrete observational tests for next-generation UHECR datasets.

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Elena Manao, Elisa Resconi, Frank M. Rieger, Paolo Padovani, Gia Dvali. 2026-10-16. Exploring Cosmic Rays from Gravity-Limited Acceleration at Supermassive Black Holes. https://doi.org/10.1103/8p34-jczv

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