The Nuclear Window to the Extragalactic Universe

Abstract

We investigate two recent parameterizations of the galactic magnetic field with respect to their impact on cosmic nuclei traversing the field. We present a comprehensive study of the size of angular deflections, dispersion in the arrival probability distributions, multiplicity in the images of arrival on Earth, variance in field transparency, and influence of the turbulent field components. To remain restricted to ballistic deflections, a cosmic nucleus with energy E and charge Z should have a rigidity above E/Z=6 EV. In view of the differences resulting from the two field parameterizations as a measure of current knowledge in the galactic field, this rigidity threshold may have to be increased. For a point source search with E/Z>60 EV, field uncertainties increase the required signal events for discovery moderately for sources in the northern and southern regions, but substantially for sources near the galactic disk.