Cosmic Rays

The scope of the book is to give an overview of the history of astroparticle physics, starting with the discovery of cosmic rays (Victor Hess, 1912) and its background (X-ray, radioactivity).

This book presents two candidates for astrophysical accelerators of cosmic rays with petaelectron-volt (PeV) energies in our Galaxy, the so-called PeVatrons, through the observation of sub-PeV gamma rays performed by the Tibet air shower array. The two gamma-ray sources are TASG J1844-038—a newly detected source in this presented work—and HESS J1849-000. Reconstructing their gamma-ray energy spectra up to the sub-PeV range and also analyzing the archive data published by a radio survey, the book discusses in depth the emission mechanisms of the observed gamma rays and suggests that these two gamma-ray sources are candidates for PeVatrons. The results give insights into the population of PeVatron in the Galaxy, which is important to consider their contribution to the PeV cosmic rays observed at the Earth.

Cosmic ray physics has recently attracted a great deal of attention from the high energy physics community because of the discovery of new sources and the advent of new techniques.

On the occasion of the International Conference on Cosmic Rays held in Kyoto in August 1979 five aged members of the cosmic ray fraternity, H. Elliot, V. L. Ginzburg, B. Peters, Y. Sekido, and J. A. Simpson met together as a dinner party devoted to the enjoyment of Japanese cuisine and reminiscences of our younger days.