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(Abridged) Data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory (Auger) provide evidence for anisotropy in the arrival directions of cosmic rays (CRs) with energies >57 EeV that suggests a correlation with the positions of AGN located within ~75 Mpc. A detailed study of the sample of AGN whose positions are located within 3.2 degrees of the CR events (and extending our analysis out to ~150 Mpc) shows that most of them are classified as Seyfert 2 and low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) galaxies whose properties do not differ substantially from other local AGN of the same types. Therefore, if the production of the highest energy CRs is persistent in nature, i.e., operates in a single object on long (>Myr) timescales, the claimed correlation between the CR events observed by Auger and local active galaxies should be considered as resulting from a chance coincidence. Additionally, most of the selected sources do not show significant jet activity, and hence, in most conservative scenarios, there are no reasons for expecting them to accelerate CRs up to the highest energies, ~10^20 eV. A future analysis has to take into account AGN morphology and may yield a correlation with a larger deflection angle and/or more distant sources. We further argue that the nearby radio galaxy NGC 5128 (Cen A) alone could be associated with at least 4 events due to its large radio extent, and PKS 1343-60 (Cen B), another nearby radio galaxy, can be associated with more than 1 event due to its proximity to the Galactic plane and, correspondingly, the stronger Galactic magnetic field the UHECRs encounter during propagation to the Earth. Future gamma-ray observations (by, e.g., Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and HESS) may provide additional clues to the nature of the accelerators of the UHECRs in the local Universe.
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 correlatio
As recently suggested, nearby quasar remnants are plausible sites of black-hole based compact dynamos that could be capable of accelerating ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). In such a model, UHECRs would originate at the nuclei of nearby dead q
We measure the correlation between sky coordinates of the Swift BAT catalogue of active galactic nuclei with the arrival directions of the highest energy cosmic rays detected by the Auger Observatory. The statistically complete, hard X-ray catalogue
The origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) with energies above E > 1017eV, is still unknown. The discovery of their sources will reveal the engines of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. This is a written versi
The origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays promises to lead us to a deeper understanding of the structure of matter. This is possible through the study of particle collisions at center-of-mass energies in interactions far larger than anything possib