Cosmic ray drift, the second knee and galactic anisotropies

Abstract

We show that the second knee in the cosmic ray spectrum (i.e. the steepening occurring at E ≃ 4 × 10¹⁷ eV) could be related to drift effects affecting the heaviest nuclear component, the iron group nuclei, in a scenario in which the knee at 3 × 10¹⁵ eV indicates the onset of drift effects in the lighter proton component. We also study the anisotropies resulting from diffusion and drift currents in the Galaxy, showing their potential relevance to account for the AGASA observations at E ~ 10¹⁸ eV, before the extragalactic component becomes dominant.