Related papers: Cosmic-ray and X-ray Heating of Interstellar Cloud…
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…
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…
Cosmic rays are an important source of heating in the interstellar medium, in particular in dense molecular cloud cores shielded from the external ultraviolet radiation field. The limits placed on the cosmic-ray ionization rate from…
Understanding the processes occurring in the nuclear disk of our Galaxy is interesting in its own right, as part of the Milky Way Galaxy, but also because it is the closest galactic nucleus. It has been more than two decades since it was…
Galactic cosmic rays are a ubiquitous source of ionisation of the interstellar gas, competing with UV and X-ray photons as well as natural radioactivity in determining the fractional abundance of electrons, ions and charged dust grains in…
Observations of line ratios in the Milky Way's warm ionized medium (WIM) suggest that photoionization is not the only heating mechanism present. For the additional heating to explain the discrepancy it would have to have a weaker dependence…
Low-energy cosmic rays ($E\lesssim 1$ GeV) are responsible for the ionisation and heating of molecular clouds. While the role of supra-thermal electrons produced in the ionisation process in inducing excitation of the ambient gas (mostly…
Dissociation of molecular hydrogen by secondary electrons produced by cosmic ray or X-ray ionization plays a crucial role in the chemistry of the densest part of molecular clouds. Here we study the effect of the mean kinetic energy of…
A field with particularly exciting results over the past few years is the study of the interaction of cosmic rays with interstellar matter. For star formation to take place, gas and dust need to be sufficiently cold for gravity to overcome…
Photoionization by high-energy photons creates nonthermal electrons with a broad range of energies that heat and chemically transform the atmospheres of planets. The specifics of the interactions are notably different when the gas is atomic…
(abridged) The dominant thermal mechanisms in the neutral interstellar medium, which acts as a star-forming gas reservoir, are uncertain in extremely metal-poor galaxies. Our objective is to identify the heating mechanisms in one such…
Star formation in galaxies is regulated by dynamical and thermal processes. The photoelectric effect on small dust grains usually dominates the heating of the star-forming neutral atomic gas reservoir in metal-rich galaxies, while the lower…
Context. Cosmic ray particles that hit interstellar grains in dark molecular cores may induce whole-grain heating. The high temperature of a CR-heated grain allows energy barriers for bulk diffusion and reactions to be overcome.…
We investigate ionization and heating of gas in the dense, shielded clumps/cores of molecular clouds bathed by an influx of energetic, charged cosmic rays (CRs). These molecular clouds have complex structures, with substantial variation in…
The virialization shock around an X-ray cluster primarily heats the ions, since they carry most of the kinetic energy of the infalling gas. Subsequently, the ions share their thermal energy with the electrons through Coulomb collisions. We…
One of the most outstanding problems in the gravitational collapse scenario of early structure formation is the cooling of primordial gas to allow for small mass objects to form. As the neutral primordial gas is a poor radiator at…
Spatial variations of the [S II]/H-Alpha and [N II]/H-Alpha line intensity ratios observed in the gaseous halo of the Milky Way and other galaxies are inconsistent with pure photoionization models. They appear to require a supplemental…
Cosmic rays generated by supernovae carry away a significant portion of the lifetime energy emission of their parent star, making them a plausible mechanism for heating the early universe intergalactic medium (IGM). Following a review of…
Electrons densities in different locations of our galaxy are obtained in pulsar astronomy by dividing the dispersion measure (DM) by the distance of the pulsar to Earth. The properties of the interstellar plasma are related to its heating.…
Cosmic rays are an essential ingredient in the evolution of the interstellar medium, as they dominate the ionisation of the dense molecular gas, where stars and planets form. However, since they are efficiently scattered by the galactic…