Related papers: Interstellar dust charging in dense molecular clou…
Nine lectures reviewing the astrophysics of dust in interstellar clouds. Topics include: (1) Summary of observational evidence concerning interstellar dust: broadband extinction, scattering of starlight, polarization of starlight,…
It is widely accepted that cosmic rays (CRs) up to at least PeV energies are Galactic in origin. Accelerated particles are injected into the interstellar medium where they propagate to the farthest reaches of the Milky Way, including a…
Grain growth by accretion of gas-phase metals is a common assumption in models of dust evolution, but in dense gas, where the timescale is short enough for accretion to be effective, material is accreted in the form of ice mantles rather…
We report the analysis of the Fermi-Large Area Telescope data from six nearby giant molecular clouds (MCs) belonging to the Gould Belt and the Aquila Rift regions. The high statistical {\gamma}-ray spectra above 3 GeV well described by…
This study explores the dynamic evolution of dust electrical potential and plasma particle number densities with a focus on the charging of dust grains through electron and ion absorption, as described by the orbital motion limited (OML)…
The structure and evolution of aggregate grains formed within a plasma environment are dependent upon the charge acquired by the micron-sized dust grains during the coagulation process. The manner in which the charge is arranged on…
Most theoretical investigations of dust charging processes in space have treated the current balance condition as independent of grain size. However, for small grains, as they are often observed in space environments, a dependence on grain…
We recently questioned the treatment of a dust particle as a perfect absorber for electrons and ions and proposed a surface model for the charge of a dust particle in a quiescent plasma which combines the microscopic physics at the grain…
We explore the impact of cosmic rays (CRs) on cosmological adaptive-mesh refinement simulations of a forming 10^12 Msolar halo, focusing on the circumgalactic medium (CGM), and its resulting low-redshift structure and composition. In…
Diffuse emission is produced in energetic cosmic ray (CR) interactions, mainly protons and electrons, with the interstellar gas and radiation field and contains the information about particle spectra in distant regions of the Galaxy. It may…
In the interstellar medium, cosmic rays (CRs) generate a field of ultraviolet (UV) photons via the excitation and subsequent radiative decay of $\rm H_2$ molecules. This UV field is a major agent of ionization and dissociation in the inner…
We present new calculations of the photoionization of interstellar matter within ~5 pc of the Sun (which we refer to as the Complex of Local Interstellar Clouds or CLIC) by directly observed radiation sources including nearby hot stars and…
We argue that impact velocities between dust grains with sizes less than $\sim 0.1$ $\mu m$ in molecular cloud cores are dominated by drift arising from ambipolar diffusion. This effect is due to the size dependence of the dust coupling to…
We have calculated the radiation field, dust grain temperatures, and far infrared emissivity of numerical models of turbulent molecular clouds. When compared to a uniform cloud of the same mean optical depth, most of the volume inside the…
Recent data from ATIC, CREAM and PAMELA revealed that the energy spectra of cosmic ray (CR) nuclei above 100 GeV/nucleon experience a remarkable hardening with increasing energy. This effect cannot be recovered by the conventional…
Outflows of pre-main-sequence stars drive shocks into molecular material within 0.01 - 1 pc of the young stars. The shock-heated gas emits infrared, millimeter and submillimeter lines of many species including. Dust grains are important…
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 (CRs) interact with the gas, the radiation field and the magnetic field in the Milky Way, producing diffuse emission from radio to gamma rays. Observations of this diffuse emission and comparison with detailed predictions are…
X-ray luminous cool-core (CC) galaxy clusters contain powerful cosmic ray (CR) sources. High-energy CRs powering GHz synchrotron lose energy rapidly, but long-lived (~Gyr-old) populations of 0.1-1 GeV CRs persist, propagating to ~100 kpc…
We discuss the rotational excitation of small interstellar grains and the resulting electric dipole radiation from spinning dust. Attention is given to excitation and damping of rotation by: collisions with neutrals; collisions with ions;…