The Source Composition of Galactic Cosmic Rays as Possibly Originated from the Dust in the Circumstellar and Interstellar Space

Author(s):  
Kunitomo Sakurai
1991 ◽  
Vol 126 ◽  
pp. 433-436
Author(s):  
Kunitomo Sakurai

AbstractThe chemical composition of galactic cosmic rays in their sources is similar to that of interstellar clouds or grains which are relatively enriched in refractory and siderophile elements as compared with the chemical composition of the solar atmosphere. Taking into account this fact, it is shown that the cosmic ray source matter can be identified as the dust or grains observed in the envelopes of red supergiant stars or the matter originally ejected from supernova explosions.


1971 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 740-756
Author(s):  
Maurice M. Shapiro

The ‘Galactic’ cosmic rays impinging on the Earth come from afar over tortuous paths, traveling for millions of years. These particles are the only known samples of matter that reach us from regions of space beyond the solar system. Their chemical and isotopic composition and their energy spectra provide clues to the nature of cosmic-ray sources, the properties of interstellar space, and the dynamics of the Galaxy. Various processes in high-energy astrophysics could be illuminated by a more complete understanding of the arriving cosmic rays, including the electrons and gamma rays.En route, some of theprimordialcosmic-ray nuclei have been transformed by collision with interstellar matter, and the composition is substantially modified by these collisions. A dramatic consequence of the transformations is the presence in the arriving ‘beam’ of considerable fluxes of purely secondary elements (Li, Be, B), i.e., species that are, in all probability, essentially absent at the sources. We shall here discuss mainly the composition of the arriving ‘heavy’ nuclei -those heavier than helium - and what they teach us about thesourcecomposition, the galactic confinement of the particles, their path lengths, and their transit times.


1968 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. S544-S547 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. V. Reames ◽  
C. E. Fichtel

Recent measurements of low-energy galactic cosmic rays obtained on sounding rockets and satellites exhibit a composition different from that obtained for intermediate and high-energy radiation obtained at balloon altitudes. In particular the ratio of light to medium nuclei is observed to be 0.2–0.3 in the 50–100 MeV/nucleon interval as compared with values near 0.5 in the 200–500 MeV/nucleon region. Lower values of the ratios C/O, N/O, F/O, and odd-Z/even-Z are also found. In the light of these new measurements and of new measurements on the fragmentation cross sections for cosmic-ray nuclei in interstellar space, an attempt has been made to calculate the composition expected if similar source spectra are assumed. It is found that neither passage through a fixed amount of material nor an equilibrium condition (exponential path-length distribution) is adequate to explain the observed features. The effects of including other mechanisms such as rigidity-dependent escape from the galaxy and Fermi acceleration in interstellar space are evaluated.


Within our Galaxy, cosmic rays can reveal their presence in interstellar space and probably in source regions by their interactions with interstellar matter which lead to γ-rays with a very characteristic energy spectrum. From the study of the intensity of the high energy γ radiation as a function of galactic longitude, it is already clear that cosmic rays are almost certainly not uniformly distributed in the Galaxy and are not concentrated in the centre of the Galaxy. The galactic cosmic rays appear to be tied to galactic structural features, presumably by the galactic magnetic fields which are in turn held by the matter in the arm segments and the clouds. On the extra-galactic scale, it is now possible to say that cosmic rays are probably not at the density seen near the Earth. The diffuse celestial γ-ray spectrum that is observed presents the interesting possibility of cosmological studies and possible evidence for a residual universal cosmic ray density, which is much lower than the present galactic cosmic-ray density.


1998 ◽  
Vol 499 (2) ◽  
pp. 735-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lemoine ◽  
Elisabeth Vangioni‐Flam ◽  
Michel Casse

2021 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Amato ◽  
Sabrina Casanova

Accelerated particles are ubiquitous in the Cosmos and play a fundamental role in many processes governing the evolution of the Universe at all scales, from the sub-AU scale relevant for the formation and evolution of stars and planets to the Mpc scale involved in Galaxy assembly. We reveal the presence of energetic particles in many classes of astrophysical sources thanks to their production of non-thermal radiation, and we detect them directly at the Earth as cosmic rays. In the last two decades both direct and indirect observations have provided us a wealth of new, high-quality data about cosmic rays and their interactions both in sources and during propagation, in the Galaxy and in the Solar System. Some of the new data have confirmed existing theories about particle acceleration and propagation and their interplay with the environment in which they occur. Some others have brought about interesting surprises, whose interpretation is not straightforward within the standard framework and may require a change of paradigm in terms of our ideas about the origin of cosmic rays of different species or in different energy ranges. In this article, we focus on cosmic rays of galactic origin, namely with energies below a few petaelectronvolts, where a steepening is observed in the spectrum of energetic particles detected at the Earth. We review the recent observational findings and the current status of the theory about the origin and propagation of galactic cosmic rays.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. eaax3793 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Q. An ◽  
R. Asfandiyarov ◽  
P. Azzarello ◽  
P. Bernardini ◽  
...  

The precise measurement of the spectrum of protons, the most abundant component of the cosmic radiation, is necessary to understand the source and acceleration of cosmic rays in the Milky Way. This work reports the measurement of the cosmic ray proton fluxes with kinetic energies from 40 GeV to 100 TeV, with 2 1/2 years of data recorded by the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE). This is the first time that an experiment directly measures the cosmic ray protons up to ~100 TeV with high statistics. The measured spectrum confirms the spectral hardening at ~300 GeV found by previous experiments and reveals a softening at ~13.6 TeV, with the spectral index changing from ~2.60 to ~2.85. Our result suggests the existence of a new spectral feature of cosmic rays at energies lower than the so-called knee and sheds new light on the origin of Galactic cosmic rays.


Science ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 314 (5798) ◽  
pp. 439-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Amenomori ◽  
S. Ayabe ◽  
X. J. Bi ◽  
D. Chen ◽  
S. W. Cui ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document