ZAP // NightCafe Studio
A new study suggests that the source of cosmic ray energy is magnetic turbulence.
Os cosmic rays Ultra-high-energy particles, which emerge in extreme astrophysical environments (notably near black holes and neutron stars), have much more energy than the energetic particles emerging from the Sun.
In fact, the particles that make up these very strong energy flows are about 10 million times the energy of accelerated particles in the most extreme environment on Earth, the Large Hadron Collider.
But where does all this energy come from, anyway? For a long time, researchers believed that it came from shocks that occur in this type of environment, such as the explosion of a star before forming a black hole, for example.
While plausible, new research suggests a different mechanism. According to , the source of the energy of cosmic rays is, most likely, magnetic turbulence.
The authors of , recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, discovered that the magnetic fields in these environments intertwine and rotate, accelerating the particles and drastically increasing your energy until there is an abrupt cut.
“This discovery helps resolve persistent questions that are of great interest to both astrophysicists and particle physicists about how these cosmic rays obtain their energy,” said Luca Comisso, a scientist at the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory.
This new study complements previous research, published last year, on the Sun’s energetic particles. In it, scientists discovered that these particles emerge from magnetic fields in the solar corona.
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays are much more powerful than the energetic particles of our star, in that they can reach up to 1020 electron volts, while particles from the Sun can reach up to 1010 electron-volts.
“It is very interesting that these two extremely different environments share something in common: their magnetic fields are highly intertwined and this entangled nature is decisive for energizing particles”, said Comisso.
