Related papers: Molecular Clouds as Cosmic-Ray Barometers
The Galactic gamma-ray diffuse emission (GDE) is emitted by cosmic rays (CRs), ultra-relativistic protons and electrons, interacting with gas and electromagnetic radiation fields in the interstellar medium. Here we present the analysis of…
We present quantitative statistical evidence for a $\gamma$-ray emission halo surrounding the Galaxy. Maps of the emission are derived. EGRET data were analyzed in a wavelet-based non-parametric hypothesis testing framework, using a model…
Recent gamma-ray observations have detected photons up to energies of a few PeV. These highly energetic gamma rays are emitted by the most powerful sources in the Galaxy. Propagating over astrophysical distances, gamma rays might interact…
We analyze the gamma-ray emission from 9 high latitude, translucent molecular clouds taken with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) between 250 MeV and 10 GeV. Observations of gamma-rays allow us to probe the density and spectrum of cosmic…
New evidence that cosmic rays (hadronic component) are accelerated by supernova remnant shocks all the way from low energies to high energies, has come from recent works combining gamma-ray observations in the sub-GeV to TeV domain on the…
One of the outstanding questions in astronomy today is how gas flows from the circumgalactic medium (CGM) onto the disks of galaxies and then transitions from the diffuse atomic medium into molecular star-forming cores. For studies of the…
We investigate the diffusion of cosmic rays into molecular cloud complexes. Using the cosmic-ray diffusion formalism of Protheroe, et al. (2008), we examine how cosmic rays diffuse into clouds exhibiting different density structures,…
The observed spectral bump in cosmic-ray (CR) proton and helium spectra, along with the phase and amplitude evolution of CR dipole anisotropy, provide plausible yet indirect evidence for the presence of a nearby CR source. This study…
We are constructing a model which aims to reproduce observational data of many kinds related to cosmic-ray origin and propagation: direct measurements of nuclei, antiprotons, electrons and positrons, gamma-rays, and synchrotron radiation.…
Many of the baryons in our Galaxy probably lie outside the well known disk and bulge components. Despite a wealth of evidence for the presence of some gas in galactic halos, including absorption line systems in the spectra of quasars, high…
Diffuse emission in gamma-rays and neutrinos are produced by the interaction of cosmic rays with the interstellar medium. Below some hundreds of TeV, the sources of these cosmic rays are most likely Galactic. Hence, observations of…
High energy $\gamma$ rays from Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) carry direct information about the spatial and energy distributions of Galactic Cosmic Rays (CRs). The recently released catalogs of GMCs contain sufficiently massive clouds to be…
We analyze the processes governing cosmic-ray (CR) penetration into molecular clouds and the resulting generation of gamma-ray emission. The density of CRs inside a cloud is depleted at lower energies due to the self-excited MHD turbulence.…
The main achievements, current developments and prospects of molecular studies in external galaxies are reviewed. They are put in the context of the results of several decades of studies of molecules in local interstellar medium, their…
I review recent observations of molecular gas in the halo of the Milky Way and in the Magellanic Clouds. Far-ultraviolet absorption line studies of molecular hydrogen (H_2) with ORFEUS and FUSE have unveiled the presence of a diffuse…
The flux of very high-energy neutrinos produced in our Galaxy by the interaction of accelerated cosmic rays with the interstellar medium is not yet determined. The characterization of this flux will shed light on Galactic accelerator…
Interstellar clouds can act as target material for hadronic cosmic rays; gamma rays subsequently produced through inelastic proton-proton collisions and spatially associated with such clouds can provide a key indicator of efficient particle…
Using 3D hydrodynamic calculations we simulate formation of molecular clouds in the Galaxy. The simulations take into account molecular hydrogen chemical kinetics, cooling and heating processes. Comprehensive gravitational potential…
The presence of small amounts of atomic hydrogen, detected as absorption dips in the 21 cm line spectrum, is a well-known characteristic of dark clouds. The abundance of hydrogen atoms measured in the densest regions of molecular clouds can…
We present a new model of the three-dimensional distribution of molecular gas in the Milky Way Galaxy, based on CO line data. Our analysis is based on a gas-flow simulation of the inner Galaxy using smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH)…