Related papers: Life Extinctions By Cosmic Ray Bursts
The work considers the modelling of nearby supernova (SN) effects on Earth's biosphere via cosmic rays (CRs) accelerated by shockwaves. The rise of the radiation background on Earth resulted from the external irradiation by CR high-energy…
$\gamma$-ray bursts have baffled theorists ever since their accidental discovery at the sixties. We suggest that these bursts originate in merger of neutron star binaries, taking place at cosmological distances. These mergers release…
Evidence from the WMAP polarization data indicates that the Universe may have been reionized at very high redshift. It is often suggested that the ionizing UV flux originates from an early population of massive or very massive stars.…
Massive stars in their final stages of collapse radiate most of their binding energy in the form of MeV neutrinos. The recoil atoms that they produce in elastic scattering off nuclei in organic tissue create radiation damage which is highly…
Our Galaxy is the largest nuclear interaction experiment which we know, because of the interaction between cosmic ray particles and the interstellar material. Cosmic rays are particles, which have been accelerated in the Galaxy or in…
We study mass ejection from a binary neutron star merger producing a long-lived massive neutron star remnant with general-relativistic neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics simulations. In addition to outflows generated by shocks and tidal…
Recently the possibility was widely discussed that a large fraction of the highest energy cosmic rays may be decay products of Z bosons which were produced in the resonant annihilation of ultrahigh energy cosmic neutrinos on cosmological…
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…
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are likely to have made a number of significant impacts on the Earth during the last billion years. We have used a two-dimensional atmospheric model to investigate the effects on the Earth's atmosphere of GRBs…
It has been suggested that galactic shock asymmetry induced by our galaxy's infall toward the Virgo Cluster may be a source of periodicity in cosmic ray exposure as the solar system oscillates perpendicular to the galactic plane. Here we…
(abridged abstract) Theoretical arguments indicate that close-in terrestial exoplanets may have weak magnetic fields. As described in the companion article (Paper I), a weak magnetic field results in a high flux of galactic cosmic rays to…
If neutrinos are a significant contributor to the matter density of the universe, then they should have $\sim$ eV mass and cluster in galactic (super) cluster halos, and possibly in galactic halos as well. It was noted in the early 1980's…
Considerable data and analysis support the detection of one or more supernovae at a distance of about 50 pc, ~2.6 million years ago. This is possibly related to the extinction event around that time and is a member of a series of explosions…
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…
We discuss some the effects of local gamma-ray bursts on the earth's atmosphere. A rough calculation of the fraction of ozone destruction by catalytic $NO_{x}$ cycles is given, which in turn serves to argue how the large flux of gammas from…
The observation by the BATSE instrument on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are distributed isotropically around the Earth but nonuniformly in distance has led to the widespread conclusion that GRBs are most…
We study high-energy emission from the mergers of neutron star binaries as electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves aside from short gamma-ray bursts. The mergers entail significant mass ejection, which interacts with the…
Highly relativistic jets from merger and accretion induced collapse of compact stellar objects, which may produce the cosmological gamma ray bursts (GRBs), are also very efficient and powerful cosmic ray accelerators. The expected…
The collision of a high energy cosmic ray with a nucleon in the upper atmosphere could produce long-lived heavy particles. Such particles would be very penetrating, since the energy loss in matter scales as the inverse mass, and could reach…
Multiple lines of evidence point to one or more moderately nearby supernovae, with the strongest signal ~2.6 Ma. We build on previous work to argue for the likelihood of cosmic ray ionization of the atmosphere and electron cascades leading…