Related papers: Cosmic ray ionization of the interstellar medium
The problem of predicting the upper cut-off of the cosmic ray spectrum is re-examined. Some aspects of extremely high energy interactions and their implications for the interpretation of giant air showers are also discussed.
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…
Synchrotron radiation from cosmic rays is a key observational probe of the galactic magnetic field. Interpreting synchrotron emission data requires knowledge of the cosmic ray number density, which is often assumed to be in energy…
We present a new local interstellar spectrum for cosmic ray electrons over an energy range from 1 MeV to 70 GeV. Below (0.8 plus minus 0.2) GeV it has a power law form, E^-(1.55 plus minus 0.05), with E kinetic energy, which is consistent…
We study the spectral properties of the cosmic-ray spectrum in the interstellar medium within 1 kpc distance from the Sun. We used eight-year exposure data of molecular clouds of the Gould Belt obtained with the Fermi/LAT telescope to…
A brief review about the chemical composition of cosmic rays in the energy range 10^15 < E < 10^20 eV is given. While there is convincing evidence for an increasingly heavier composition above the knee, no clear picture has emerged at the…
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…
A field with particularly exciting results over the past few years is the study of the interaction of cosmic rays with interstellar matter. For star formation to take place, gas and dust need to be sufficiently cold for gravity to overcome…
We consider the propagation of galactic cosmic rays under assumption that the interstellar medium is a fractal one. An anomalous diffusion equation in terms of fractional derivatives is used to describe of cosmic ray propagation. The…
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…
All the components of cosmic rays have 'structure' in their energy spectra at some level, ie deviations from a simple power law, and their examination is relevant to the origin of the particles. Emphasis, here, is placed on the large-scale…
We study anisotropy of cosmic rays in the energy range 0.2-1.4 EeV at intermediate angular scales using the public data set of the Pierre Auger Observatory. At certain scales, the analysis reveals a number of deviations from the isotropic…
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.…
The study of high energy cosmic rays is a diversified field of observational and phenomenological physics addressing questions ranging from shock acceleration of charged particles in various astrophysical objects, via transport properties…
We review some of the recent progress in our knowledge about high-energy cosmic rays, with an emphasis on the interpretation of the different observational results. We discuss the effects that are relevant to shape the cosmic ray spectrum…
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.…
Determining the spatial distribution of Galactic cosmic rays (CRs) is fundamental to understand how these particles propagate in interstellar space and to infer their source spectra. The most sensitive method of studying this problem is…
We have recently shown that the cosmic ray energy distributions as detected on earthbound, low flying balloon or high flying satellite detectors can be computed by employing the heats of evaporation of high energy particles from…
Cosmic rays are the main agents in controlling the chemical evolution and setting the ambipolar diffusion time of a molecular cloud. We summarise the processes causing the energy degradation of cosmic rays due to their interaction with…
Recent data from ATIC, CREAM and PAMELA indicate that the cosmic ray energy spectra of protons and nuclei exhibit a remarkable hardening at energies above 100 GeV per nucleon. We propose that the hardening is an interstellar propagation…