Search for Correlations between Nearby AGNs and Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays.pdfVIP

Search for Correlations between Nearby AGNs and Ultra-high Energy Cosmic Rays J. D. Hague a J.A.J. Matthews a,1 B. R. Becker a M. S. Gold a 6 a University of New Mexico, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Albuquerque, 0 New Mexico, USA 0 2 t c O Abstract 1 3 The majority of the highest energy cosmic rays are thought to be electrically 2 charged: protons or nuclei. Charged particles experience angular deflections as they v pass through galactic and extra-galactic magnetic fields. As a consequence correla- 5 tion of cosmic ray arrival directions with potential sources has proved to be difficult. 5 6 This situation is not helped by current data samples where the number of cosmic 9 rays/source are typically ≤ O(1). Progress will be made when there are signifi- 0 cantly larger data samples and perhaps with better catalogs of candidate sources. 6 0 This paper reports a search for correlations between the RXTE catalog of nearby / active galactic nuclei, AGNs, and the published list of ultra-high energy cosmic h p rays from the AGASA experiment. Although no statistically significant correlations o- were found, two correlations were observed between AGASA events and the most r inclusive category of RXTE AGNs. t s a : v Key words: highest energy cosmic rays – AGNs as sources – search for correlations i X r a 1 Introduction Perhaps the primary goal of all experiments studying the highest energy cos- mic rays is to find the source of these particles. While circumstantial evidence may favor one type of source over another, demonstra