Acceleration of the high‐energy protons in an active galactic nuclei

Abstract

The process of stationary acceleration of protons by an electric field in the electromagnetic field of active galactic nuclei, including the regions of the magnetosphere of a supermassive black hole and a relativistic jet, is considered. The process of collisionless acceleration of the proton as a component of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays is assumed. It is shown that during acceleration to the maximum energy max the main part of the energy is achieved by a proton in the magnetosphere up to (2∕3) max in the region of the light cylinder. Further achievement of the maximum energy max occurs in the jet region, where, depending on the parameters of the amplitudes of the electric and magnetic fields, various acceleration regimes are possible.

Blazars at Very High Energies: Emission Modelling

“…Particles are expected to be present in the magnetospheres, possibly generated by pair creation or injected from the turbulent accretion flow and disk. For weak enough ambient radiation field and typical magnetic field of a few tens of Gauss, they can then reach high energies at the outer light surface, estimated to possibly reach 10 to 100 TeV for electrons and positrons, and up to 10 18 to 10 20 eV for protons which do not suffer high synchrotron losses [129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136][137][138]. Such effects have been proposed especially to explain ultra-fast varying AGN flares (see Section 4) and should at least contribute to inject a population of energetic particles at the base of jets and winds from the central AGN engine (e.g., [133,137,139]).…”