The diffuse gamma-ray flux from clusters of galaxies.

The origin of the diffuse gamma-ray background (DGRB), the one that remains after subtracting all individual sources from observed gamma-ray sky, is unknown. The DGRB possibly encompasses contributions from different source populations such as star-forming galaxies, starburst galaxies, active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, or galaxy clusters. Here, we combine cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations of clusters of galaxies with the propagation of cosmic rays (CRs) using Monte Carlo simulations, in the redshift range z ≤ 5.

Particle acceleration in turbulence and weakly stochastic reconnection.

In this Letter we analyze the energy distribution evolution of test particles injected in three dimensional (3D) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of different magnetic reconnection configurations. When considering a single Sweet-Parker topology, the particles accelerate predominantly through a first-order Fermi process, as predicted in and demonstrated numerically in . When turbulence is included within the current sheet, the acceleration rate is highly enhanced, because reconnection becomes fast and independent of resistivity and allows the formation of a thick volume filled with multiple simultaneously reconnecting magnetic fluxes.

Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Acceleration by Magnetic Reconnection in Newborn Accretion-induced Collapse Pulsars.

We here investigate the possibility that the ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray (UHECR) events observed above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) limit are mostly protons accelerated in reconnection sites just above the magnetosphere of newborn millisecond pulsars that are originated by accretion-induced collapse (AIC). We formulate the requirements for the acceleration mechanism and show that AIC pulsars with surface magnetic fields 1012 G/=10(20) eV. Because the expected rate of AIC sources in our Galaxy is very small ( approximately 10(-5) yr(-1)), the corresponding contribution to the flux of UHECRs is negligible and the total flux is given by the integrated contribution from AIC sources produced by the distribution of galaxies located within the distance that is unaffected by the GZK cutoff ( approximately 50 Mpc).