Galaxies Correlating with Ultra-high Energy Cosmic Rays

Understand

The Pierre Auger Observatory reports that 20 of the 27 highest energy cosmic rays have arrival directions within 3.2 deg of a nearby galaxy in the Veron-Cetty & Veron Catalog of Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei (12th Ed.), with ~5 of the correlations expected by chance.

• In this paper we examine the correlated galaxies to gain insight into the possible UHECR sources.
• We find that 14 of the 21 correlated VCV galaxies are AGNs and we determine their bolometric luminosities.
• The remaining 7 are primarily star-forming galaxies.