We will here discuss how the gamma-ray emission from molecular clouds can be used to probe the cosmic ray flux in distant regions of the Galaxy and to constrain the highly unknown cosmic ray diffusion coefficient. In particular we will discuss the GeV to TeV emission from runaway cosmic rays penetrating molecular clouds close to young and old supernova remnants and in molecular clouds illuminated by the background cosmic ray flux.
@article{arxiv.1104.1109,
title = {Molecular Clouds as Cosmic Ray Laboratories},
author = {Sabrina Casanova and Felix A. Aharonian and Yasuo Fukui and Stefano Gabici and David I. Jones and Akiko Kawamura and Toshikazu Onishi and Gavin Rowell and Hidetoshi Sano and Kazufumi Torii and Francesca Volpe and Hiroaki Yamamoto},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1104.1109},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
to appear on Proceedings of 25th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics