Related papers: Molecular Clouds as Cosmic-Ray Barometers
The last decade has been dense with new developments in the search for the sources of Galactic cosmic rays. Some of these developments have confirmed the tight connection between cosmic rays and supernovae in our Galaxy, through the…
In this review, I highlight a number of recent surveys of molecular gas in nearby spiral galaxies. Through such surveys, more complete observations of the distribution and kinematics of molecular gas have become available for galaxies with…
Starburst galaxies exhibit in their central regions a highly increased rate of supernovae, the remnants of which are thought to accelerate energetic cosmic rays up to energies of ~ 10^15 eV. We report the detection of gamma rays -- tracers…
We have developed a model which aims to reproduce observational data of many kinds related to cosmic-ray (CR) origin and propagation: direct measurements of nuclei, antiprotons, electrons and positrons, gamma-rays, and synchrotron…
Cosmic-rays interacting with nucleons in the solar atmosphere produce a cascade of particles that give rise to a flux of high-energy neutrinos and gamma-rays. Fermi has observed this gamma-ray flux; however, the associated neutrino flux has…
Low energy cosmic rays (up to the GeV energy domain) play a crucial role in the physics and chemistry of the densest phase of the interstellar medium. Unlike interstellar ionising radiation, they can penetrate large column densities of gas,…
Pulsar halos are extended gamma-ray structures generated by electrons and positrons escaping from pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), considered a new class of gamma-ray sources. They are ideal indicators for cosmic-ray propagation in localized…
Cosmic rays are important probe of a number of fundamental physical problems such as the acceleration of high and very high energy particles in extreme astrophysical environments. The Galactic center is widely anticipated to be an important…
Protons and helium nuclei are the most abundant components of the cosmic radiation. Precise measurements of their fluxes are needed to understand the acceleration and subsequent propagation of cosmic rays in the Galaxy. We report precision…
Low-frequency radio observations of diffuse synchrotron radiation offer a unique vantage point for investigating the intricate relationship between gas and magnetic fields in the formation of structures within the Galaxy, spanning from the…
We use observations of the neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) 21-cm emission line to study the spatial distribution of the HI gas in a 80$\degree\times~$90$\degree$ region of the Galaxy halo. The HI column densities in the range of…
Cosmic rays travelling through interstellar space have their propagation directions repeatedly scattered by fluctuating interstellar magnetic fields. The nature of this scattering is a major unsolved problem in astrophysics, one that has…
Aims: Stars twinkle because their light propagates through the atmosphere. The same phenomenon is expected at a longer time scale when the light of remote stars crosses an interstellar molecular cloud, but it has never been observed at…
We present a method to derive positions of molecular clouds along the lines of sight from a quantitative comparison between 2.6 mm CO emission lines and 18 cm OH absorption lines, and apply it to the central kiloparsecs of the Milky Way.…
The past two decades have seen extensive surveys of the far-infrared to submillimeter continuum emission in the plane of our Galaxy. We line out prospects for the coming decade for corresponding molecular and atomic line surveys which are…
The diffuse TeV emission detected from the inner $\sim2^\circ$ of the Galaxy appears to be strongly correlated with the distribution of molecular gas along the Galactic ridge. Although it is not yet entirely clear whether the origin of the…
The injection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays in the intergalactic medium leads to the production of a GeV-TeV gamma-ray halo centered on the source location, through the production of a high electromagnetic component in the interactions…
Recent measurements of cosmic gamma ray intensities up to TeV energies have been used to estimate the spectral shape of the parent cosmic ray particles present in the interstellar medium. The case is made for the particle spectrum in the…
Observations of light isotopes in cosmic rays provide information on their origin and propagation in the Galaxy. Using the data collected by AMS-01 in the STS- 91 space mission, we compare the measurements on 1H, 2H, 3He and 4He with…
Cosmic-rays constitute the main ionising and heating agent in dense, starless, molecular cloud cores. We reexamine the physical quantities necessary to determine the cosmic-ray ionisation rate (especially the cosmic ray spectrum at E < 1…