A study on active galactic nuclei correlated with the arrival directions of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays

Abstract

We study the correlation between active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and the arrival directions of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) by using the nearest-source angular-distance distribution. Based on this, we search for a subset of the whole set of AGNs that improves the correlation. We investigate the distinguished features of AGNs of that subset, compared to the whole set of AGNs, in distance distribution, absolute magnitude distribution, and radio wave loudness.