The current state and future prospects of ultra high energy cosmic ray physics are reviewed. These cosmic rays with energies well above 1018 eV are messengers of an unknown extremely high-energy universe.

Cosmic rays are ubiquitous in space, and are apparently present wherever the matter density is small enough that they are not removed by collisions with ambient particles. The essential similarity of their energy spectra in many different regions places significant general constraints on the mechanisms for their acceleration and confinement. Diffusive shock acceleration is at present the most successful acceleration mechanism proposed, and, together with transport in Kolmogorov turbulence, can account for the universal specta. In comparison to shock acceleration, statistical acceleration, invoked in many situations, has significant disadvantages. The basic physics of acceleration and transport are discussed, and examples shown where it apparently works very well. However, there are now well-established situations where diffusive shock acceleration cannot be the accelerator. This problem will be discussed and possible acceleration mechanism evaluated. Statistical acceleration in these places is possible. In addition, a new mechanism, called diffusive compression acceleration, will be discussed and shown to be an attractive candidate. It has similarities with both statistical acceleration and shock acceleration.

Recent observations of galaxy clusters in radio and X-ray indicate that cosmic rays and magnetic fields may be energetically important in the intracluster medium. According to the estimates based on theses observational studies, the combined pressure of these two components of the intracluster medium may range between 10% ~ 100% of gas pressure, although their total energy is probably time dependent. Hence, these non-thermal components may have influenced the formation and evolution of cosmic structures, and may provide unique and vital diagnostic information through various radiations emitted via their interactions with surrounding matter and cosmic background photons. We suggest that shock waves associated with cosmic structures, along with individual sources such as active galactic nuclei and radio galaxies, supply the cosmic rays and magnetic fields to the intracluster medium and to surrounding large scale structures. In order to study 1) the properties of cosmic shock waves emerging during the large scale structure formation of the universe, and 2) the dynamical influence of cosmic rays, which were ejected by AGN-like sources into the intracluster medium, on structure formation, we have performed two sets of N-body /hydrodynamic simulations of cosmic structure formation. In this contribution, we report the preliminary results of these simulations.

Nonthermal particles can be produced due to incomplete thermalization at collisionless shocks and further accelerated to very high energies via diffusive shock acceleration. In a previous study we explored the cosmic ray (CR) acceleration at cosmic shocks through numerical simulations of CR modified, quasi-parallel shocks in 1D plane-parallel geometry with the physical parameters relevant for the shocks emerging in the large scale structure formation of the universe (Kang & Jones 2002). Specifically we considered pancake shocks driven by accretion flows with Uo = 1500 km s-l and the preshock gas temperature of To = 10 4 - 10 8K. In order to consider the CR acceleration at shocks with a broader range of physical properties, in this contribution we present additional simulations with accretion flows with Uo = 75 - 1500 km s-l and To = 10 4K. We also compare the new simulation results with those reported in the previous study. For a given Mach number, shocks with higher speeds accelerate CRs faster with a greater number of particles, since the acceleration time scale is tacc ∝ Uo-2. However, two shocks with a same Mach number but with different shock speeds evolve qualitatively similarly when the results are presented in terms of diffusion length and time scales. Therefore, the time asymptotic value for the fraction of shock kinetic energy transferred to CRs is mainly controlled by shock Mach number rather than shock speed. Although the CR acceleration efficiency depends weakly on a well-constrained injection parameter, є, and on shock speed for low shock Mach numbers, the dependence disappears for high shock Mach numbers. We present the 'CR energy ratio', Φ(Ms), for a wide range of shock parameters and for є = 0.2 - 0.3 at terminal time of our simulations. We suggest that these values can be considered as time-asymptotic values for the CR acceleration efficiency, since the time-dependent evolution of CR modified shocks has become approximately self-similar before the terminal time.

Cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of large scale structure in the universe have shown that accretion shocks and merger shocks form due to flow motions associated with the gravitational collapse of nonlinear structures. Estimated speed and curvature radius of these shocks could be as large as a few 1000 km/s and several Mpc, respectively. According to the diffusive shock acceleration theory, populations of cosmic-ray particles can be injected and accelerated to very high energy by astrophysical shocks in tenuous plasmas. In order to explore the cosmic ray acceleration at the cosmic shocks, we have performed nonlinear numerical simulations of cosmic ray (CR) modified shocks with the newly developed CRASH (Cosmic Ray Amr SHock) numerical code. We adopted the Bohm diffusion model for CRs, based on the hypothesis that strong Alfven waves are self-generated by streaming CRs. The shock formation simulation includes a plasma-physics-based 'injection' model that transfers a small proportion of the thermal proton flux through the shock into low energy CRs for acceleration there. We found that, for strong accretion shocks, CRs can absorb most of shock kinetic energy and the accretion shock speed is reduced up to 20%, compared to pure gas dynamic shocks. For merger shocks with small Mach numbers, however, the energy transfer to CRs is only about 10-20% with an associated CR particle fraction of 10-3. Nonlinear feedback due to the CR pressure is insignificant in the latter shocks. Although detailed results depend on models for the particle diffusion and injection, these calculations show that cosmic shocks in large scale structure could provide acceleration sites of extragalactic cosmic rays of the highest energy.

Rarefied cosmic plasmas generally do not achieve thermodynamic equilibria, and a natural consequence of this is the presence of a significant population of charged particles with energies well above those of the bulk population. These are exemplified by the galactic cosmic rays, but the importance of these high energy populations extends well beyond that context. I review here some of the basic issues associated with the propagation and acceleration of cosmic rays, especially in the context of collisionless plasma shocks.

In order to explore the time dependence of the closure parameters of the two-fluid calculations for supernova remnants and the terminal shocks of stellar winds, we have considered a simple model in which the time evolution of the cosmic-ray distribution function was followed in the test-particle limit using the Bohm diffusion model. The particles are mostly accelerated to relativistic energy either in the free expansion phase of the SNRs or in the early phase of the stellar winds, so the evolution of the closure parameters during these early stages is substantial and should be followed correctly. We have also calculated the maximum momentum which is limited by either the age or the curvature of these spherical shocks. We found that SNRs expanding into the medium where the gas density decreases with the distance from the explosion center might be necessary to explain the observed power-law distribution of the galactic cosmic rays. The energy loss due to the escaping energetic particles has been estimated for the terminal shocks of the stellar winds.

Most of high energy cosmic rays (CRs) are thought to be produced by diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) at supernova remnants (SNRs) within the Galaxy. Fortunately, nonthermal emissions from CR protons and electrons can provide direct observational evidence for such a model and place strong constraints on the complex nonlinear plasma processes in DSA theory. In this study we calculate the energy spectra of CR protons and electrons in Type Ia SNRs, using time-dependent DSA simulations that incorporate phenomenological models for some wave-particle interactions. We demonstrate that the timedependent evolution of the self-amplified magnetic fields, Alfvénic drift, and escape of the highest energy particles affect the energy spectra of accelerated protons and electrons, and so resulting nonthermal radiation spectrum. Especially, the spectral cutoffs in X-ray and γ-ray emission spectra are regulated by the evolution of the highest energy particles, which are injected at the early phase of SNRs. Thus detailed understandings of nonlinear wave-particle interactions and time-dependent DSA simulations of SNRs are crucial in testing the SNR hypothesis for the origin of Galactic cosmic rays.