Related papers: Low Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions in Astrophysics
Most cosmic ray particles observed derive from the explosions of massive stars, which commonly produce stellar black holes in their supernova explosions. When two such black holes find themselves in a tight binary system they finally merge…
The origin of highest energy cosmic rays is yet unknown. An appealing possibility is the so-called Z-burst scenario, in which a large fraction of these cosmic rays are decay products of Z bosons produced in the scattering of ultrahigh…
The presence of small amounts of atomic hydrogen, detected as absorption dips in the 21 cm line spectrum, is a well-known characteristic of dark clouds. The abundance of hydrogen atoms measured in the densest regions of molecular clouds can…
The physics of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays will be reviewed, discussing the latest experimental results and theoretical models aiming at explaining the observations in terms of spectra, mass composition and possible sources. It will be…
Cosmic rays (CRs) generate diffuse emission while interacting with the Galactic magnetic field (B-field), the interstellar gas and the radiation field. This diffuse emission extends from radio, microwaves, through X-rays, to high-energy…
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays are mostly charged particles and they are therefore deflected by magnetic fields on their path from their sources to Earth. An interesting phenomenon arising from these deflections is the appearance of multiple…
The redshifted ultraviolet light from early stars at z ~ 10 contributes to the cosmic near infrared background. We present detailed calculations of its spectrum with various assumptions about metallicity and mass spectrum of early stars. We…
Hadronic cosmic particles (cosmic rays) and gamma rays are constantly absorbed in the Earth's atmosphere and result in air showers of secondary particles. Cherenkov radiation from these atmospheric events is used to measure cosmic gamma…
Cosmic rays, along with stellar radiation and magnetic fields, are known to make up a significant fraction of the energy density of galaxies such as the Milky Way. When cosmic rays interact in the interstellar medium, they produce gamma-ray…
Radioactive decay of unstable atomic nuclei leads to liberation of nuclear binding energy in the forms of gamma-ray photons and secondary particles (electrons, positrons); their energy then energises surrounding matter. Unstable nuclei are…
Recent results from Pierre Auger Observatory, showing energy dependent chemical composition of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with a growing fraction of heavy elements at high energies, suggest a possible non-negligible contribution…
A new analysis of cosmic ray (CR) data collected by the SOKOL experiment in space found that the deuteron-to-helium ratio at energies between 500 and 2000 GeV/nucleon takes the value d/He ~ 1.5. As we will show, this result cannot be…
The rate of terrestrial irradiation events by galactic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is estimated using recent standard-energy results. We assume that GRBs accelerate high-energy cosmic rays, and present results of three-dimensional simulations…
The origin of Galactic cosmic rays remains a matter of debate, but supernova remnants are commonly considered to be the main place where high-energy cosmic rays are accelerated. Nevertheless, current models predict cosmic-ray spectra that…
Based on general considerations rather than model-dependent fits to specific scenarios, we argue that an increase with energy of the positron fraction in cosmic rays, suggested by several experiments at E>~7 GeV, most likely requires a…
Gamma-ray binaries are orbital modulated gamma-ray sources in the Galaxy detected both at GeV and TeV energies. The high-energy radiation may come from the interaction of energetic electrons injected by a young pulsar and photons from the…
The unprecedented quality of the data collected by the AMS-02 experiment onboard the International Space Station allowed us to address subtle questions concerning the origin and propagation of cosmic rays. Here we discuss the implications…
Cosmic rays are the highest energy particles found in nature. Measurements of the mass composition of cosmic rays between 10^{17} eV and 10^{18} eV are essential to understand whether this energy range is dominated by Galactic or…
We consider the production of $^6$Li in spallation reactions by cosmic rays in order to explain the observed abundance in halo metal-poor stars. We show that heating of ambient gas by cosmic rays is an inevitable consequence of this…
The article gives a brief overview, aimed at nonspecialists, about the goals and selected recent results of the detection of very-high energy gamma-rays (energies above 100 GeV) with ground based detectors. The stress is on the physics…