Related papers: The Effect of Cosmic Rays on Cometary Nuclei: I Do…
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…
Galaxies at high redshifts with strong star formation are sources of high-energy cosmic rays. These cosmic rays interact with the baryon and radiation fields of the galactic environment via photo-pair, photo-pion and proton-proton processes…
We present a Monte Carlo study of galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) energy deposition and its implications for stratospheric chemistry, performed with the Geant4 toolkit. Primary nuclei (protons, $\alpha$, CNO, and Si) were propagated through an…
Comet nuclei in the outer Solar system are constantly irradiated by cosmic rays at low temperatures. Accumulated high concentrations of radicals can undergo fast recombination with significant heating of cometary surface layers. We present…
Comets hold the key to the understanding of our solar system, its formation and its evolution, and to the fundamental plasma processes at work both in it and beyond it. A comet nucleus emits gas as it is heated by the sunlight. The gas…
The physical properties of cometary nuclei observed today relate to their complex history and help to constrain their formation and evolution. In this article, we review some of the main physical properties of cometary nuclei and focus in…
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…
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…
High velocity clouds moving toward the disk will reach the Galactic plane and will inevitably collide with the disk. In these collisions a system of two shocks is produced, one propagating through the disk and the other develops within the…
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…
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…
The composition of cometary ices provides key information on the thermal and chemical properties of the outer parts of the protoplanetary disk where they formed 4.6 Gy ago. This chapter reviews our knowledge of composition of cometary comae…
Earth is constantly struck by radiation coming from the interstellar medium. The very low energy end of the spectrum is shielded by the geomagnetic field but charged particles with energies higher than the geomagnetic cutoff will penetrate…
Multidimensional modification of gravity with a smaller mass scale of the gravitational interaction is considered. Stable by assumption dark matter particles could decay via interactions with virtual black holes. The decay rates of such…
The electron temperature of the plasma is one important aspect of the environment. Electrons created by photoionization or impact ionization of atmospheric gas have energies $\sim$10 eV. In an active comet coma, the gas density is high…
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,…
This paper deals with the cosmic-ray penetration into molecular clouds and with the related gamma--ray emission. High energy cosmic rays interact with the dense gas and produce neutral pions which in turn decay into two gamma rays. This…
Cosmic rays (CR), both solar and Galactic, have an ionising effect on the Earth's atmosphere and are thought to be important for prebiotic molecule production. In particular, the $\rm{H_2}$-dominated atmosphere following an ocean-vaporising…
EGRET data on the Gamma ray emission from the inner Galaxy have shown a rather flat spectrum, extending to about 50 GeV. It is usually assumed that these gamma-rays arise from the interactions of cosmic ray nuclei with ambient matter.…
Cosmic rays of kinetic energies below ~1 GeV per nucleon are thought to play a key role in the chemistry and dynamics of the interstellar medium. They are also thought to be responsible for nucleosynthesis of the light elements Li, Be, and…