Evidence for a connection between the gamma-ray and the highest energy cosmic-ray emissions by BL Lacertae objects

摘要

A set of potentially gamma-ray--loud BL Lac objects is selected byintersecting the EGRET and BL Lac catalogs. Of the resulting 14 objects, eightare found to correlate with arrival directions of ultra--high-energy cosmicrays (UHECRs), with significance of the order of 5 sigma. This suggests thatgamma-ray emission can be used as a distinctive feature of those BL Lac objectsthat are capable of producing UHECR.