Sombrero galaxy as an accelerator of ultrahigh energy cosmic ray nuclei
Phys. Rev. D 113, 023026 – Published 13 January, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rr8k-3l3k
Abstract
Motivated by a recent proposal that points to the Sombrero galaxy as a source of the highest energy cosmic rays, we investigate the feasibility of accelerating both light and heavy nuclei near the supermassive black hole located at the center of this nearly edge-on galaxy that is just beyond naked-eye visibility. We show that cosmic ray nuclei concentrated in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole could be efficiently accelerated up to the maximum observed energies without suffering catastrophic spallations. Armed with our findings we stand against conventional wisdom and conjecture that accelerators of the highest energy cosmic rays must anticorrelate with the (electromagnetic) source power.
