Ultrahigh Energy Nuclei in the Galactic Magnetic Field

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Observations are consistent with a significant fraction of heavy nuclei in the cosmic ray flux above a few times 10¹9 eV. Such nuclei can be deflected considerably in the Galactic magnetic field, with important implications for the search of their sources. We perform detailed simulations of heavy nuclei propagation within recent Galactic magnetic field models. While such models are not yet sufficiently constrained to predict deflection maps in detail, we find general features of the distribution of (de-) magnified flux from sources. Since in most theoretical models sources of heavy nuclei are located in the local large scale structure of galaxies, we show examples of images of several nearby galaxy clusters and of the supergalactic plane. Such general features may be useful to develop efficient methods for source reconstruction from observed ultrahigh energy cosmic ray arrival directions.