TeV Emission by Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays in Nearby, Dormant AGNs

Abstract

The curvature radiation produced by particles accelerating near the event horizon of a spinning supermassive black hole, threaded by externally supported magnetic field lines is considered. It is shown that light nuclei suffer catastrophic curvature losses that limit the maximum energy they can attain to values well below that imposed by the maximum potential difference induced by the black hole dynamo, unless the curvature radius of magnetic field lines largely exceeds the gravitational radius. It is further shown that the dominant fraction of the rotational energy extracted from the black hole is radiated in the TeV band. Given the observed flux of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, and the estimated number of nearby supermassive black holes, it is expected that if dormant AGNs are the sources of UHECRs, as proposed recently by Boldt & Ghosh, then they should also be detectable at TeV energies by present TeV experiments.