Speaker
Description
I will talk about the perfectly designed by Nature machines - Cosmic Ray Factories accelerating particles - electrons and protons - with a rate close to the theoretical margin allowed by classical electrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics. For a long time, we suspected the Crab Nebula as an extreme electron accelerator. After the recent detection of PeV gamma-rays from the Crab, we have direct evidence that it operates as an extreme electron accelerator. The highest-energy particles of 10^20 eV observed in cosmic rays provide the most convincing case of extreme proton accelerators linked, most probably, to relativistic jets driven by supermassive Black Holes. I will discuss the role of these objects in the context of the origin of galactic and extragalactic cosmic rays.
