Related papers: Nuclear interactions of low-energy cosmic rays wit…
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,…
In recent years, exciting developments have taken place in the identification of the role of cosmic rays in star-forming environments. Observations from radio to infrared wavelengths and theoretical modelling have shown that low-energy…
Recent observations of high ionization rates of molecular hydrogen in diffuse interstellar clouds point to a distinct low-energy cosmic-ray component. Supposing that this component is made of nuclei, two models for the origin of such…
Our Galaxy is the largest nuclear interaction experiment which we know, because of the interaction between cosmic ray particles and the interstellar material. Cosmic rays are particles, which have been accelerated in the Galaxy or in…
Solar flare observations are used to demonstrate the new technique of abundance determination based on gamma ray line emission produced by accelerated particle bombardment. Some of the implications of similar gamma ray line emission…
Evidence for the existence of low energy cosmic rays in the Galaxy comes from the COMPTEL observations of gamma ray line emission from Orion, and also from light element abundance data which seem to suggest a low energy rather than a…
Cosmic rays are charged energetic particles that permeate the interstellar medium. Their sizeable energy share and penetration power makes them essential players in the dynamical and chemical processes that rule Galactic evolution, such as…
The main goal of the present lectures is to outline the key particle interactions and energy loss mechanisms in the Galactic medium that high-energy particles are subject to. These interactions are an important ingredient entering the…
The most energetic part of the electromagnetic spectrum bears the purest clues to the synthesis of atomic nuclei in the universe. The decay of radioactive species, synthesized in stellar environments and ejected into the interstellar…
Light element nucleosynthesis is an important chapter of nuclear astrophysics. Specifically, the rare and fragile light nuclei Lithium, Beryllium and Boron (LiBeB) are not generated in the normal course of stellar nucleosynthesis (except…
We take a phenomenological approach in a minimal model to understand the spectral intensity of secondary cosmic-ray particles like positrons, antiprotons, Lithium, Beryllium and Boron. Our analysis shows that cosmic rays at $\sim$ GeV…
Energetic gamma rays (GeV to TeV photon energy) have been detected toward several supernova remnants (SNR) that are associated with molecular clouds. If the gamma rays are produced mainly by hadronic processes rather than leptonic processes…
Low-energy cosmic rays are a fundamental source of ionization for molecular clouds, influencing their chemical, thermal and dynamical evolution. The purpose of this work is to explore the possibility that a low-energy component of…
Secondary nuclear production physics is receiving increased attention given the high-quality measurements of the gamma-ray emissivity of local interstellar gas between ~50 MeV and ~40 GeV, obtained with the Large Area Telescope on board the…
When examining the abundance of elements in the placid interstellar medium, a deep hollow between helium and carbon becomes apparent. Notably, the fragile light nuclei Lithium, Beryllium, and Boron (collectively known as LiBeB) are not…
We present convenient formulae for the energy losses of energetic atomic nuclei over the entire energy range relevant to the physics of cosmic rays. Results are applied to a leaky-box equation with a complete loss term. Thereby we derive…
We consider a cosmic ray spectrum that is a power law in momentum down to a cutoff and derive a lower cutoff corresponding to $E_{kin} \sim (30-60)$ MeV from the observed ionization rates in nearby diffuse clouds. While the real spectra of…
The propagation of cosmic iron nuclei with energies above 10^19 eV from their sources to the Galaxy is discussed by assuming that cosmic rays at ultra-high energies are of extragalactic origin. In extragalactic space, cosmic nuclei interact…
The flux of neutrinos and photons originating from cosmic ray interactions with the interstellar medium in the galaxy is calculated based on current models for high energy particle interactions. The contribution from a possible dark matter…
The study of the gamma-ray radiation produced by cosmic rays that escape their accelerators is of paramount importance for (at least) two reasons: first, the detection of those gamma-ray photons can serve to identify the sources of cosmic…