Related papers: The origin of the ankle
The energies of cosmic rays, fully ionized charged nuclei, extend over a wide range up to 10^20 eV. A particularly interesting energy region spans from 10^14 to 10^18 eV, where the all-particle energy spectrum exhibits two interesting…
Several kinds of measurements are combined in an attempt to obtain a consistent estimate of the spectrum and composition of the primary cosmic radiation through the knee region. Assuming that the knee is a signal of the high-energy end of a…
The origin of cosmic rays above the knee in the spectrum is an unsolved problem. We present a wind model in which interstellar gas flows along a non-rotating, expanding flux tube with a changing speed and cross-sectional area. Cosmic rays…
An overview on the present observational status and phenomenological understanding of cosmic rays above 10^16 eV is given. Above these energies the cosmic ray flux is expected to be gradually dominated by an extra-galactic component. In…
An update of the status of the knee in the cosmic ray energy spectrum at 3-4 PeV is presented. We argue that the evidence in favour of the presence of a 'single source' is even stronger than before.
Analysis of the experimental data on cosmic ray spectra in the framework of the proposed model with two types of sources leads to conclusion, that sources with particle generation spectral exponent $p\sim 2.85$ give the major contribution…
The main purpose of this work is to find the causes of the break of the cosmic ray spectrum at an energy of 3 PeV, which is called the knee. The solution of the problem is associated with the determination of the nuclear composition of…
The knee in the all-particle energy spectrum is scrutinized with a phenomenological model, named poly-gonato model, linking results from direct and indirect measurements. For this purpose, recent results from direct and indirect…
There are two promising scenarios that explain the ankle, which is a dip in the spectrum of cosmic rays at $\sim 10^{19}$ eV. A scenario interprets the ankle as the transition from Galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays ({\it…
In a comprehensive model of Cosmic Rays (CRs) proposed a decade ago, the energies of the spectral "knees" of the various CR species were predicted to be proportional to mass, rather than charge. The model also predicts the knees to occur at…
From the data on Cherenkov light from EASs collected over the period of more than 15 years, the spectrum of cosmic rays was obtained in the energy range 1.0E15-1.0E18 eV. This spectrum has two features: at ~3.0E15 eV (first knee) and at…
A "knee" in the cosmic-ray spectrum, characterized by a sudden steepening of the spectral shape at $\sim 4$ PeV, may be interpreted either as a global feature of Galactic cosmic rays or as a local signature. In the former scenario,…
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 cosmic rays at all energies is still uncertain. In this paper we present and explore an astrophysical scenario to produce cosmic rays with energy ranging from below $10^{15}$ o $3 \times 10^{20}$ eV. We show here that just our…
The study of the transition between galactic and extragalactic cosmic rays can shed more light on the end of the Galactic cosmic rays spectrum and the beginning of the extragalactic one. Three models of transition are discussed: ankle, dip…
The observation of a small change in spectral slope, or 'knee' in the fluxes of cosmic rays near energies 10^15 eV has caused much speculation since its discovery over 40 years ago. The origin of this feature remains unknown. A small…
We constrain the energy at which the transition from Galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays occurs by computing the anisotropy at Earth of cosmic rays emitted by Galactic sources. Since the diffusion approximation starts to loose its…
Various experiments indicate the existence of a second knee around energy E=3.10^{17} eV in the cosmic ray spectrum. This feature could be the signature of the end of the galactic component and of the emergence of the extragalactic one,…
We report a measurement of the energy spectrum of cosmic rays for energies above $2.5 {\times} 10^{18}~$eV based on 215,030 events recorded with zenith angles below $60^\circ$. A key feature of the work is that the estimates of the energies…
The energy at which cosmic rays from extra-galactic sources begin to dominate over those from galactic sources is an important open question in astroparticle physics. A natural candidate is the energy at the 'ankle' in the approximately…