Related papers: Ionisation as indicator for cosmic ray acceleratio…
It is generally regarded that the bulk of cosmic rays originate in the Galaxy and that those below the 'knee' (the rapid steepening in the energy spectrum) at a few PeV come from Galactic supernovae, the particles being accelerated by the…
Cosmic rays represent one of the most important energy transformation processes of the universe. They bring information about the surrounding universe, our galaxy, and very probably also the extragalactic space, at least at the highest…
The AMS-02 experiment has reported precise measurements of energy spectra of several cosmic-ray species in the range of ~(0.5-2000) GeV/n. An intriguing finding is the differences in the spectral shape between the different species. Protons…
Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) have been proposed as one {\it possible} class of sources of the Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) events observed up to energies $\gsim10^{20}\ev$. The synchrotron radiation of the highest energy protons…
Cosmic rays are the most outstanding example of accelerated particles. They are about 1\% of the total mass of the Universe, so that cosmic rays would represent by far the most important energy transformation process of the Universe.…
We present a detailed morphological study of TeV gamma rays, synchrotron radiation, and interstellar gas in the young Type Ia supernova remnant (SNR) RCW 86. We find that the interstellar atomic gas shows good spatial correlation with the…
Recent international efforts have brought us closer to unveiling the century old mystery of the origin of cosmic rays. Cosmic ray, gamma ray, and neutrino observatories are reaching the necessary sensitivity to study the highest energy…
Molecular clouds act as targets for cosmic rays (CR), revealing their presence through either gamma-ray emission due to proton-proton interactions, and/or through the ionization level in the cloud, produced by the CR flux. The ionization…
Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays are the most energetic of any subatomic particles ever observed in nature. The quest for their mysterious origin is currently a major scientific challenge. Here we explore the possibility that these particles…
The Sun stands out as the closest and clearest astrophysical accelerator of cosmic rays, while other objects within and beyond the galaxy remain enigmatic. It is probable that the cosmic ray spectrum and mass components from these celestial…
Interpretation of the energy spectrum and arrival distribution of cosmic rays is complicated by lack of knowledge of the nature of the primaries. We review claims for the mass composition above 1017 eV where it can be determined only…
The multi-TeV $\gamma$-rays from the Galactic Center (GC) have a cutoff at tens of TeV, whereas the diffuse emission has no such cutoff, which is regarded as an indication of PeV proton acceleration by the HESS experiment. It is important…
Although cosmic rays were discovered a century ago, we do not know where or how they are accelerated. There is a realistic hope that the oldest problem in astronomy will be solved soon by ambitious experimentation: air shower arrays of…
Low-energy cosmic rays ($<1$ TeV) are a pivotal source of ionisation of the interstellar medium, where they play a central role in determining the gas chemical composition and drastically influence the formation of stars and planets. Over…
A review is given of the main properties of the charged component of galactic cosmic rays, particles detected at Earth with an energy spanning from tens of MeV up to about 10^19 eV. After a short introduction to the topic and an historical…
The origin of Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) remains a mystery after more than one century of their discovery. The diffusive propagation of charged particles in the turbulent Galactic magnetic field makes us unable to trace back to their…
Recently, gamma-ray emission at TeV energies has been detected from the starburst galaxies NGC253 (Acero et al., 2009) and M82 (Acciari et al., 2009. It has been claimed that pion production due to cosmic rays accelerated in supernova…
The field of ultra-high energy cosmic rays made a lot of progresses last years with large area experiments such as the Pierre Auger Observatory, HiRes and the Telescope Array. A suppression of the cosmic ray flux at energies above…
The Sun is a bright source of GeV gamma rays, due to cosmic rays interacting with solar matter and photons. Key aspects of the underlying processes remain mysterious. The emission in the TeV range, for which there are neither observational…
We report, for the first time, the long-awaited detection of diffuse gamma rays with energies between 100 TeV and 1 PeV in the Galactic disk. Particularly, all gamma rays above 398 TeV are observed apart from known TeV gamma-ray sources and…