TY  - EJOUR
AU  - de Ona Wilhelmi, Emma Maria
AU  - López-Coto, Ruben
AU  - Aharonian, Felix
AU  - Amato, Elena
AU  - Cao, Zhen
AU  - Gabici, Stefano
AU  - Hinton, Jim
TI  - The hunt for PeVatrons as the origin of the most energetic photons observed in the Galaxy
IS  - arXiv:2404.16591
M1  - PUBDB-2024-07619
M1  - arXiv:2404.16591
PY  - 2024
N1  - Published in Nature Astronomy, Volume 8, pages 425-431 (2024)
AB  - Ultrarelativistic particles called cosmic rays permeate the Milky Way, propagating through the turbulent Galactic magnetic fields. The mechanisms under which these particles increase their energy can be reasonably described by current theories of acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays. There are, however, still many open questions as to how to reach petaelectronvolt (PeV) energies, the maximum energy believed to be attained in our Galaxy, and in which astrophysical sources (dubbed PeVatrons) this ultrahigh-energy acceleration happens. In this Review, we describe the theoretical conditions for plasma acceleration to these energies and the Galactic sources in which these conditions are possible. These theoretical predictions are then compared to the latest experimental results, summarizing the state of the art of our current knowledge of PeVatrons. We finally describe the prospects to keep advancing the understanding of these elusive objects, still unidentified more than 100 years after the discovery of cosmic rays.
KW  - plasma: acceleration (INSPIRE)
KW  - magnetic field: turbulence (INSPIRE)
KW  - cosmic radiation: propagation (INSPIRE)
KW  - galaxy (INSPIRE)
KW  - experimental results (INSPIRE)
KW  - gamma ray: VHE (INSPIRE)
KW  - cosmic radiation: diffusion (INSPIRE)
KW  - accelerator (INSPIRE)
KW  - cosmic radiation: UHE (INSPIRE)
KW  - photon (INSPIRE)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)25
UR  - https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/619414
ER  -