Acceleration of 10⁸ GeV protons in high temperature – high density plasmas in active galactic nuclei

Abstract

Observational evidences point to a high rate of supernova explosions in the central region of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Terlevich et al. (1992) showed that many of the characteristics of the broad line regions in AGN can be explained by the rapid cooling of the corresponding supernovas remnants expanding in this hot, high density (N-407) ambient medium. We applied the code developed by Medina Tanco and Opher (1993) for galactic cosmic rays acceleration propagation to simulate numerically (3D) the sequential acceleration of protons interacting with such remnants. It is shown that particles with energies as high as 10⁸ GeV, can be obtained under reasonable assumptions.