Related papers: Cosmic ray ionization of the interstellar medium
Cosmic rays are a fundamental source of ionization for molecular and diffuse clouds, influencing their chemical, thermal, and dynamical evolution. The amount of cosmic rays inside a cloud also determines the $\gamma$-ray flux produced by…
Cosmic rays are a fundamental source of ionization for molecular and diffuse clouds, influencing their chemical, thermal, and dynamical evolution. The amount of cosmic rays inside a cloud also determines the $\gamma$-ray flux produced by…
The differential energy spectrum of cosmic rays from Cherenkov radiation measurements in EAS in the energy range of 10^15-10^20eV has been compared with an anomalous diffusion model for the particles in interstellar space having fractal…
The local interstellar spectrum of cosmic ray electrons and positrons from 0.8 GeV to 2 TeV is derived by demodulating the measured spectra by balloon and satellite experiments. It can be well represented by a single power law in kinetic…
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,…
Diffuse interstellar clouds show large abundances of H_3^+ which can be maintained only by a high ionization rate of H_2. Cosmic rays are the dominant ionization mechanism in this environment, so the large ionization rate implies a high…
It is presumed that the observed cosmic rays up to about $3\times 10^{18}$ eV are of Galactic origin, the particles being the ones which are found in the composition of the stellar winds of stars that explode as supernova into the…
Cosmic ray story begins at the beginning of XX century. More then 100 years later, most of the main issues are still open questions, as sources, acceleration mechanism, propagation and composition. There is a continuing fascination with the…
Cosmic rays are charged energetic particles that permeate the interstellar medium. Their sizeable energy share and penetration power makes them essential players in the dynamical and chemical processes that rule Galactic evolution, such as…
We briefly review the status of cosmic ray studies between $10^{14}$ eV and the highest observed energies, namely a few times $10^{20}$ eV. Because of the rather low incident fluxes in this energy range, the studies mostly rely on ground…
We develop a theory to account for the cosmic ray spectrum between 1 GeV and 10^4 GeV following the earlier papers of this series. We use the basic concept that the cosmic ray particles are accelerated in a supernova shock that travels…
We consider the rate of ionization of diffuse and molecular clouds in the interstellar medium by Galactic cosmic rays (GCR) in order to constrain its low energy spectrum. We extrapolate the GCR spectrum obtained from PAMELA at high energies…
It is often claimed that there should be a 'GZK cut-off" in the flux of extragalactic cosmic rays, arising from interactions between the cosmic rays and the cosmic micro-wave background photons (e.g. 1 and 2). Some experiments (3 and 4)…
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…
We take a phenomenological approach in a minimal model to understand the spectral intensity of secondary cosmic-ray particles like positrons, antiprotons, Lithium, Beryllium and Boron. Our analysis shows that cosmic rays at $\sim$ GeV…
The energy spectrum of cosmic rays between 10**16 eV and 10**18 eV, derived from measurements of the shower size (total number of charged particles) and the total muon number of extensive air showers by the KASCADE-Grande experiment, is…
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…
I develop a theory to account for the cosmic ray spectrum. The essential assumption is that, due to fast convective motions, the free mean path perpendicular to the magnetic field is independent of energy and has the scale of the thickness…
The Galactic cosmic ray spectrum is a remarkably straight power law. Our current understanding is that the dominant sources that accelerate cosmic rays up to the knee ($3 \times 10^{15}$ eV) or perhaps even the ankle ($3 \times 10^{18}$…
Cosmic rays are the only agent able to penetrate into the interior of dense molecular clouds. Depositing (part of) their energy through ionisation, cosmic rays play an essential role in determining the physical and chemical evolution of…