Galactic Cosmic Rays from Supernova Remnants (I) - a Cosmic Ray Composition controlled by Volatility and Mass-to-Charge Ratio
Abstract
This is the first of a series of papers analysing the Galactic Cosmic Ray composition and origin. We show that the Galactic Cosmic Ray source (GCRS) composition is best described in terms of (i) a general enhancement of the refractory elements relative to the volatile ones, and (ii) among the volatile elements, an enhancement of the heavier elements relative to the lighter ones; this mass dependence most likely reflects a mass-to-charge (A/Q) dependence of the acceleration efficiency; among the refractory elements, there is NO such enhancement of heavier species, or only a much weaker one. We regard as coincidental the similarity between the GCRS composition and that of the solar corona, which is biased according to first ionization potential. In a companion paper, this GCRS composition is interpreted in terms of an acceleration by supernova shock waves of interstellar and/or circumstellar (eg Ne22 rich Wolf-Rayet wind) gas-phase and especially dust material.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9704267,
title = {Galactic Cosmic Rays from Supernova Remnants (I) - a Cosmic Ray Composition controlled by Volatility and Mass-to-Charge Ratio},
author = {Jean-Paul Meyer and L. O'C. Drury and Donald C. Ellison},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9704267},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
23 pages plain TeX and 6 postscript figures, to appear in ApJ, also available from ftp://wonka.physics.ncsu.edu/pub/ellison