https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2013-13099-7
Regular Article
HERMES: Simulating the propagation of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
1
Laboratorio sui Sistemi Complessi, Scuola Superiore di Catania, Via Valdisavoia 9, 95123, Catania, Italy
2
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università degli Studi di Catania, Via S. Sofia 64, 95123, Catania, Italy
3
INFN, Sezione di Catania, Via S. Sofia 64, 95123, Catania, Italy
* e-mail: manlio.dedomenico@ct.infn.it
Received:
19
May
2013
Revised:
9
July
2013
Accepted:
12
August
2013
Published online:
30
August
2013
The study of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) at Earth cannot prescind from the study of their propagation in the Universe. In this paper, we present HERMES, the ad hoc Monte Carlo code we have developed for the realistic simulation of UHECR propagation. We discuss the modeling adopted to simulate the cosmology, the magnetic fields, the interactions with relic photons and the production of secondary particles. In order to show the potential applications of HERMES for astroparticle studies, we provide an estimation of the surviving probability of UHE protons, the GZK horizons of nuclei and the all-particle spectrum observed at Earth in different astrophysical scenarios. Finally, we show the expected arrival direction distribution of UHECR produced from nearby candidate sources. A stable version of HERMES will be released in the next future for public use together with libraries of already propagated nuclei to allow the community to perform mass composition and energy spectrum analysis with our simulator.
© Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2013