scholarly journals TeV Cosmic Ray Anisotropy and the Heliospheric Magnetic Field

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 65-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Desiati ◽  
A. Lazarian

Abstract. Cosmic rays are observed to possess a small non uniform distribution in arrival direction. Such anisotropy appears to have a roughly consistent topology between tens of GeV and hundreds of TeV, with a smooth energy dependency on phase and amplitude. Above a few hundreds of TeV a sudden change in the topology of the anisotropy is observed. The distribution of cosmic ray sources in the Milky Way is expected to inject anisotropy on the cosmic ray flux. The nearest and most recent sources, in particular, are expected to contribute more significantly than others. Moreover the interstellar medium is expected to have different characteristics throughout the Galaxy, with different turbulent properties and injection scales. Propagation effects in the interstellar magnetic field can shape the cosmic ray particle distribution as well. In particular, in the 1–10 TeV energy range, they have a gyroradius comparable to the size of the Heliosphere, assuming a typical interstellar magnetic field strength of 3 μG. Therefore they are expected to be strongly affected by the Heliosphere in a manner ordered by the direction of the local interstellar magnetic field and of the heliotail. In this paper we discuss on the possibility that TeV cosmic rays arrival distribution might be significantly redistributed as they propagate through the Heliosphere.

1970 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 168-183
Author(s):  
E. N. Parker

The topic of this presentation is the origin and dynamical behavior of the magnetic field and cosmic-ray gas in the disk of the Galaxy. In the space available I can do no more than mention the ideas that have been developed, with but little explanation and discussion. To make up for this inadequacy I have tried to give a complete list of references in the written text, so that the interested reader can pursue the points in depth (in particular see the review articles Parker, 1968a, 1969a, 1970). My purpose here is twofold, to outline for you the calculations and ideas that have developed thus far, and to indicate the uncertainties that remain. The basic ideas are sound, I think, but, when we come to the details, there are so many theoretical alternatives that need yet to be explored and so much that is not yet made clear by observations.


2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (29) ◽  
pp. 6621-6632 ◽  
Author(s):  
BERND HEBER

The heliosphere is the region around the Sun that is filled by the solar wind and its embedded magnetic field. The interaction of the supersonic solar wind with the local interstellar medium leads to a transition from supersonic to subsonic speeds at the heliospheric termination shock. The latter is regarded to be the source of the anomalous component of cosmic rays. Within the heliosphere "local" energetic particle sources, like the Sun and interplanetary shock waves contribute to the cosmic ray flux, too. At energies below a few GeV the observed galactic and anomalous cosmic ray intensities are modulated by the heliospheric magnetic field. In my contribution, both the current knowledge and hypotheses about modulation and the transport of cosmic rays in the heliosphere are reviewed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Desiati ◽  
A. Lazarian

Abstract. Galactic cosmic rays are believed to be generated by diffusive shock acceleration processes in Supernova Remnants, and the arrival direction is likely determined by the distribution of their sources throughout the Galaxy, in particular by the nearest and youngest ones. Transport to Earth through the interstellar medium is expected to affect the cosmic ray properties as well. However, the observed anisotropy of TeV cosmic rays and its energy dependence cannot be explained with diffusion models of particle propagation in the Galaxy. Within a distance of a few parsec, diffusion regime is not valid and particles with energy below about 100 TeV must be influenced by the heliosphere and its elongated tail. The observation of a highly significant localized excess region of cosmic rays from the apparent direction of the downstream interstellar flow at 1–10 TeV energies might provide the first experimental evidence that the heliotail can affect the transport of energetic particles. In particular, TeV cosmic rays propagating through the heliotail interact with the 100–300 AU wide magnetic field polarity domains generated by the 11 yr cycles. Since the strength of non-linear convective processes is expected to be larger than viscous damping, the plasma in the heliotail is turbulent. Where magnetic field domains converge on each other due to solar wind gradient, stochastic magnetic reconnection likely occurs. Such processes may be efficient enough to re-accelerate a fraction of TeV particles as long as scattering processes are not strong. Therefore, the fractional excess of TeV cosmic rays from the narrow region toward the heliotail direction traces sightlines with the lowest smearing scattering effects, that can also explain the observation of a harder than average energy spectrum.


1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Clay ◽  
A. G. K. Smith

AbstractThe propagation of extragalactic particles within our Galaxy has been modelled. The flux of such particles is below the observed cosmic ray flux at most energies when their power-law spectrum is extrapolated back from the highest energies. Also, we expect that the propagation of extragalactic particles through static magnetic fields in the Galaxy will not result in a flux change to match the flux of particles measured here within the Galaxy. However, if we were to consider the observed cosmic rays to be of Galactic origin, there would be a remarkable similarity between the required Galactic injection flux and the extrapolated extragalactic flux. We consider here whether the scattering of extragalactic particles in the Galaxy together with an associated energy perturbation might be sufficient for the extragalactic beam to result in the production of ‘Galactic’ particles and, hence, essentially all of the observed cosmic rays. This appears to be possible.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 27-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Di Sciascio

Abstract. The measurement of the anisotropy in the cosmic ray (CR) arrival direction distribution provides important informations on the propagation mechanisms and on the identification of their sources. In the last decade the anisotropy came back to the attention of the scientific community, thanks to several new two-dimensional representations of the CR arrival direction distribution which clearly showed the existence of anisotropies at different angular scales in both hemispheres. The origin of the observed anisotropies is still unknown. So far, no theory of CRs in the Galaxy exists yet to explain the observations leaving the standard model of CRs and that of the local magnetic field unchanged at the same time. In this paper the observations of Galactic CR anisotropy will be briefly summarized, with particular attention to the results obtained by the ARGO-YBJ experiment in the Northern Hemisphere.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (3) ◽  
pp. 3497-3510
Author(s):  
Margot Fitz Axen ◽  
Julia Speicher ◽  
Aimee Hungerford ◽  
Chris L Fryer

ABSTRACT There is a growing set of observational data demonstrating that cosmic rays exhibit small-scale anisotropies (5°–30°) with amplitude deviations lying between 0.01–0.1 per cent that of the average cosmic ray flux. A broad range of models have been proposed to explain these anisotropies ranging from finite-scale magnetic field structures to dark matter annihilation. The standard diffusion transport methods used in cosmic ray propagation do not capture the transport physics in a medium with finite-scale or coherent magnetic field structures. Here, we present a Monte Carlo transport method, applying it to a series of finite-scale magnetic field structures to determine the requirements of such fields in explaining the observed cosmic ray, small-scale anisotropies.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.L Melott ◽  
B.C. Thomas ◽  
M. Kachelrieß ◽  
D.V. Semikoz ◽  
A.C. Overholt

ABSTRACTRecent 60Fe results have suggested that the estimated distances of supernovae in the last few million years should be reduced from ∼100 pc to ∼50 pc. Two events or series of events are suggested, one about 2.7 million years to 1.7 million years ago, and another may at 6.5 to 8.7 million years ago. We ask what effects such supernovae are expected to have on the terrestrial atmosphere and biota. Assuming that the Local Bubble was formed before the event being considered, and that the supernova and the Earth were both inside a weak, disordered magnetic field at that time, TeV-PeV cosmic rays at Earth will increase by a factor of a few hundred. Tropospheric ionization will increase proportionately, and the overall muon radiation load on terrestrial organisms will increase by a factor of ∼150. All return to pre-burst levels within 10kyr. In the case of an ordered magnetic field, effects depend strongly on the field orientation. The upper bound in this case is with a largely coherent field aligned along the line of sight to the supernova, in which case TeV-PeV cosmic ray flux increases are ∼104; in the case of a transverse field they are below current levels. We suggest a substantial increase in the extended effects of supernovae on Earth and in the “lethal distance” estimate; more work is needed. This paper is an explicit followup to Thomas et al. (2016). We also here provide more detail on the computational procedures used in both works.


Author(s):  
Arnon Dar

Changes in the solar neighbourhood due to the motion of the sun in the Galaxy, solar evolution, and Galactic stellar evolution influence the terrestrial environment and expose life on the Earth to cosmic hazards. Such cosmic hazards include impact of near-Earth objects (NEOs), global climatic changes due to variations in solar activity and exposure of the Earth to very large fluxes of radiations and cosmic rays from Galactic supernova (SN) explosions and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Such cosmic hazards are of low probability, but their influence on the terrestrial environment and their catastrophic consequences, as evident from geological records, justify their detailed study, and the development of rational strategies, which may minimize their threat to life and to the survival of the human race on this planet. In this chapter I shall concentrate on threats to life from increased levels of radiation and cosmic ray (CR) flux that reach the atmosphere as a result of (1) changes in solar luminosity, (2) changes in the solar environment owing to the motion of the sun around the Galactic centre and in particular, owing to its passage through the spiral arms of the Galaxy, (3) the oscillatory displacement of the solar system perpendicular to the Galactic plane, (4) solar activity, (5) Galactic SN explosions, (6) GRBs, and (7) cosmic ray bursts (CRBs). The credibility of various cosmic threats will be tested by examining whether such events could have caused some of the major mass extinctions that took place on planet Earth and were documented relatively well in the geological records of the past 500 million years (Myr). A credible claim of a global threat to life from a change in global irradiation must first demonstrate that the anticipated change is larger than the periodical changes in irradiation caused by the motions of the Earth, to which terrestrial life has adjusted itself. Most of the energy of the sun is radiated in the visible range. The atmosphere is highly transparent to this visible light but is very opaque to almost all other bands of the electromagnetic spectrum except radio waves, whose production by the sun is rather small.


1991 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 121-130
Author(s):  
J. Brand ◽  
J.G.A. Wouterloot

In the outer Galaxy (defined here as those parts of our system with galactocentric radii R>R0) the HI gas density (Wouterloot et al., 1990), the cosmic ray flux (Bloemen et al, 1984) and the metallicity (Shaver et al., 1983) are lower than in the inner parts. Also, the effect of a spiral density wave is much reduced in the outer parts of the Galaxy due to corotation. This changing environment might be expected to have its influence on the formation of molecular clouds and on star formation within them. In fact, some differences with respect to the inner Galaxy have been found: the ratio of HI to H2 surface density is increasing from about 5 near the Sun to about 100 at R≈20kpc (Wouterloot et al., 1990). Because of the “flaring” of the gaseous disk, the scale height of both the atomic and the molecular gas increases by about a factor of 3 between R0 and 2R0 (Wouterloot et al., 1990), so the mean volume density of both constituents decreases even more rapidly than their surface densities. The size of HII regions decreases significantly with increasing galactocentric distance (Fich and Blitz, 1984), probably due to the fact that outer Galaxy clouds are less massive (see section 3.3), and therefore form fewer O-type stars than their inner Galaxy counter parts. There are indications that the cloud kinetic temperature is lower by a few degrees (Mead and Kutner, 1988), although it is not clear to what extent this is caused by beam dilution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (1) ◽  
pp. L119-L122 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wittkowski ◽  
Karl-Heinz Kampert

ABSTRACT Cosmogenic neutrinos originate from interactions of cosmic rays propagating through the universe with cosmic background photons. Since both high-energy cosmic rays and cosmic background photons exist, the existence of high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos is certain. However, their flux has not been measured so far. Therefore, we calculated the flux of high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos arriving at the Earth on the basis of elaborate 4D simulations that take into account three spatial degrees of freedom and the cosmological time-evolution of the universe. Our predictions for this neutrino flux are consistent with the recent upper limits obtained from large-scale cosmic-ray experiments. We also show that the extragalactic magnetic field has a strong influence on the neutrino flux. The results of this work are important for the design of future neutrino observatories, since they allow to assess the detector volume and observation time that are necessary to detect high-energy cosmogenic neutrinos in the near future. An observation of such neutrinos would push multimessenger astronomy to hitherto unachieved energy scales.


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