[Previous] | [Session 119] | [Next]
J. Arons (University of California, Berkeley)
I describe a model of UHE Cosmic Ray origins. These ``cosmic basballs'' are ascribed to maximally rotating magnetars - neutron stars with 1015 Gauss magnetic fields rotating near breakup - born in all the galaxies within the GZK volume, each emitting a Goldreich-Julian current of ions. I show that the particle spectrum at earth agrees well with the cosmic ray spectrum above 1018 eV, that the spctrum would extend to 1022 eV (perhaps higher, if neutron stars with stronger fields exist), and that gravity wave emission may modify the predicted particle spectrum at the higher energies. I use constraints from superbubbles in the interstellar medium to constrain the amount of gravity wave emission required, and also relate the results to bursts of anomalous atmospheric chemistry observed in ice cores from the Greenland ice cap.