The origin of cosmic rays at all energies

Abstract

There is mounting evidence from observations of long duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs), supernova remnants (SNR) and the supernova (SN) explosion 1987A, that SN explosions eject highly relativistic bipolar jets of plasmoids (cannonballs) of ordinary matter. Here we use the remarkably successful cannonball (CB) model of GRBs to show that bipolar jets from Galactic SN explosions can produce the bulk of the Galactic cosmic rays at energies below the ankle, while the CRs which escape into the intergalactic space or are deposited there directly by jets from SNe in external galaxies can produce the observed cosmic ray flux with energies above the ankle. The model predict well all the observed properties of cosmic rays: their intensity, their spectrum including their elemental knees and ankle, their composition and the distribution of their arrival directions. At energies above the CR ankle, the Galactic magnetic fields can no longer delay the free escape of such ultra high energy CRs (UHECRs) from the Galaxy. The UHECRs, which are injected into the intergalactic medium (IGM) by the SN jets from our Galaxy and all the other galaxies and are isotropized there by the IGM magnetic fields, dominate the flux of UHECRs. Almost all the extragalactic UHECRs heavier than helium photo-disintegrate in collisions with the far infrared (FIR), microwave and radio background radiations. The CR protons and He nuclei however suffer a Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff due to pion photo-production in collisions with the FIR, microwave and radio background photons.