Related papers: The Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays
The AMS Collaboration has recently released data on cosmic ray (CR) leptons and hadrons that can shed light on two exciting problems in CR physics: on one side, the origin of the rise of the CR positron fraction above ~10 GeV of energy, on…
Important observational results have been recently reported on the angular distributions of cosmic rays at all energies, calling into question the perception of cosmic rays a decade ago. These results together with their in-progress…
Under current conditions, the cosmic ray spectrum incident on the Earth is dominated by particles with energies < 1 GeV. Astrophysical sources including high energy solar flares, supernovae and gamma ray bursts produce high energy cosmic…
If supernova remnants (SNRs) are the sites of cosmic-ray acceleration, the associated nuclear interactions should result in observable fluxes of TeV gamma-rays from the nearest SNRs. Measurements of the gamma-ray flux from six nearby,…
Recent EGRET observations of the diffuse Galactic gamma-ray emission reveal a spectrum which is incompatible with the assumption that the cosmic ray spectra measured locally hold throughout the Galaxy: the spectrum above 1 GeV, where the…
Recent studies, supported by updated hadronic interaction models, suggest that the mass composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays may be heavier than previously assumed. This has significant implications for source identification, as the…
The process that allows cosmic rays to escape from their sources and be released into the Galaxy is still largely unknown. The comparison between cosmic-ray electron and proton spectra measured at Earth suggests that electrons are released…
The apparent lack of suitable astrophysical sources for cosmic rays with E > 10^{19.7} eV (UHECRs) is the "GZK Paradox". We argue that whatever mechanism produces them must also account for events down to ~10^{18.7} eV, including their…
A major feature of the energy spectrum of the cosmic radiation above 10$^{19}$ eV is the increasing fraction of heavy nuclei with respect to light nuclei. This fact, along with other simple assumptions, is adopted to calculate the energy…
Radio galaxies are intensively discussed as the sources of cosmic rays observed above about 3 EeV, called ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). Here, the key issues from a recent investigation are summed up, where the individual…
High-energy neutrinos present the ultimate signature for a cosmic ray accelerator. Galactic sources responsible for acceleration of cosmic ray up to the knee in cosmic ray spectrum will provide a guaranteed, albeit subdominant, contribution…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely associated with the most energetic processes…
Cosmic rays have been observed up to energies $10^8$ times larger than those of the best particle accelerators. Studies of astrophysical particles (hadrons, neutrinos and photons) at their highest observed energies have implications for…
The center of the our Galaxy is a region where very energetic phenomena take place. In particular powerful cosmic ray sources can be located in that region. The cosmic rays accelerated in these sources may interact with ambient protons…
The $\gamma$-ray emission observed in several classes of Galactic and extragalactic astrophysical sources appears to be linked to accreting black holes and rotational powered neutron stars. These systems are prodigious cosmic accelerators,…
In this lecture I give an overview of shock acceleration, interactions of high energy cosmic rays with, and propagation through, the background radiation, and the resulting electron-photon cascade. I argue that while the origin of the…
We survey the theory and experimental tests for the propagation of cosmic rays in the Galaxy up to energies of 10^15 eV. A guide to the previous reviews and essential literature is given, followed by an exposition of basic principles. The…
Under the hypothesis that Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) might be responsible for the origin of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR), we propose a two component (galactic and extra-galactic) model for the UHECR origin. The model is based on two…
We have studied the impact of cosmic-ray acceleration in SNR on the spectra of cosmic-ray nuclei in the Galaxy using a series expansion of the propagation equation, which allows us to use analytical solutions for part of the problem and an…
It is shown that the relativistic jet, emitted from the center of the Galaxy during its activity, possessed power and energy spectrum of accelerated protons sufficient to explain the current cosmic rays distribution in the Galaxy. Proton…