Propagation of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays in a Magnetized Universe

Description
Although the recent experimental efforts to improve the observation of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) above 10^18 eV, the origin and the composition of such particles is still unknown. In this talk, we present the novel Monte Carlo code (HERMES) simulating the propagation of UHE nuclei, in the energy range between 10^16 and 10^22 eV, accounting for propagation in the intervening extragalactic and Galactic magnetic fields, nuclear interactions with relic photons of the extragalactic background radiation and production of secondary particles (UHE neutrinos and photons). In order to show the potential applications of HERMES for astroparticle studies, we estimate the expected flux of UHE nuclei in different astrophysical scenarios, the GZK horizons and we show the expected arrival direction distributions in the presence of turbulent extragalactic magnetic fields.