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Register a new userImpact of Fermi-LAT and AMS-02 results on cosmic-ray astrophysics
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Authors
Charles D. Dermer
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This article reviews a few topics relevant to Galactic cosmic-ray astrophysics, focusing on the recent AMS-02 data release and Fermi Large Area Telescope data on the diffuse Galactic gamma-ray emissivity. Calculations are made of the diffuse cosmic-ray induced p+p --> pi^0 --> 2 gamma spectra, normalized to the AMS-02 cosmic-ray proton spectrum at ~ 10 - 100 GV, with and without a hardening in the cosmic-ray proton spectrum at rigidities R >~ 300 GV. A single power-law momentum shock spectrum for the local interstellar medium cosmic-ray proton spectrum cannot be ruled out from the gamma-ray emissivity data alone without considering the additional contribution of electron bremsstrahlung. Metallicity corrections are discussed, and a maximal range of nuclear enhancement factors from 1.52 to 1.92 is estimated.Origins of the 300 GV cosmic-ray proton and alpha-particle hardening are discussed.
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The latest AMS-02 data on cosmic ray electrons show a break in the energy spectrum around 40 GeV, with a change in the slope of about 0.1. We perform a combined fit to the newest AMS-02 positron and electron flux data using a model which includes production of pairs from pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), electrons from supernova remnants (SNRs) and both species from spallation of hadronic cosmic rays with interstellar medium atoms. We demonstrate that the change of slope in the AMS-02 electron data is well explained by the interplay between the flux contributions from SNRs and from PWNe. In fact, the relative contribution to the data of these two populations changes by a factor of about 13 from 10 to 1000 GeV. The effect of the energy losses alone, when the inverse Compton scattering is properly computed within a fully numerical treatment of the Klein-Nishina cross section, cannot explain the break in the $e^-$ flux data, as recently proposed in the literature.
In this work, we considered 2 schemes (a high-rigidity break in primary source injections and a high-rigidity break in diffusion coefficient) to reproduce the newly released AMS-02 nuclei spectra (He, C, N, O, Li, Be, and B) when the rigidity larger than 50 GV. The fitting results show that current data set favors a high-rigidity break at $sim 325 mathrm{GV}$ in diffusion coefficient rather than a break at $sim 365 mathrm{GV}$ in primary source injections. Meanwhile, the fitted values of the factors to rescale the cosmic-ray (CR) flux of secondary species/components after propagation show us that the secondary flux are underestimated in current propagation model. It implies that we might locate in a slow diffusion zone, in which the CRs propagate with a small value of diffusion coefficient compared with the averaged value in the galaxy. Another hint from the fitting results show that extra secondary CR nuclei injection may be needed in current data set. All these new hints should be paid more attention in future research.
We study the propagation and injection models of cosmic rays using the latest measurements of the Boron-to-Carbon ratio and fluxes of protons, Helium, Carbon, and Oxygen nuclei by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and the Advanced Composition Explorer at top of the Earth, and the Voyager spacecraft outside the heliosphere. The ACE data during the same time interval of the AMS-02 data are extracted to minimize the complexity of the solar modulation effect. We find that the cosmic ray nucleus data favor a modified version of the diffusion-reacceleration scenario of the propagation. The diffusion coefficient is, however, required to increase moderately with decreasing rigidity at low energies, which has interesting implications on the particle and plasma interaction in the Milky Way. We further find that the low rigidity ($<$ a few GV) injection spectra are different for different compositions. The injection spectra are softer for lighter nuclei. These results are expected to be helpful in understanding the acceleration process of cosmic rays.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), whose final version AMS-02 is to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS) for at least 3 years, is a detector designed to measure charged cosmic ray spectra with energies up to the TeV region and with high energy photon detection capability up to a few hundred GeV, using state-of-the-art particle identification techniques. Following the successful flight of the detector prototype (AMS-01) aboard the space shuttle, AMS-02 is expected to provide a significant improvement on the current knowledge of the elemental and isotopic composition of hadronic cosmic rays due to its long exposure time (minimum of 3 years) and large acceptance (0.5 m^2 sr) which will enable it to collect a total statistics of more than 10^10 nuclei. Detector capabilities for charge, velocity and mass identification, estimated from ion beam tests and detailed Monte Carlo simulations, are presented. Relevant issues in cosmic ray astrophysics addressed by AMS-02, including the test of cosmic ray propagation models, galactic confinement times and the influence of solar cycles on the local cosmic ray flux, are briefly discussed.
This article aims at establishing new benchmark scenarios for Galactic cosmic-ray propagation in the GV-TV rigidity range, based on fits to the AMS-02 B/C data with the USINE v3.5 propagation code. We employ a new fitting procedure, cautiously taking into account data systematic error correlations in different rigidity bins and considering Solar modulation potential and leading nuclear cross-section as nuisance parameters. We delineate specific low, intermediate, and high-rigidity ranges that can be related to both features in the data and peculiar microphysics mechanisms resulting in spectral breaks. We single out a scenario which yields excellent fits to the data and includes all the presumably relevant complexity, the BIG model. This model has two limiting regimes: (i) the SLIM model, a minimal diffusion-only setup, and (ii) the QUAINT model, a convection-reacceleration model where transport is tuned by non-relativistic effects. All models lead to robust predictions in the high-energy regime ($gtrsim10$GV), i.e. independent of the propagation scenario: at $1sigma$, the diffusion slope $delta$ is $[0.43-0.53]$, whereas $K_{10}$, the diffusion coefficient at 10GV, is $[0.26-0.36]$kpc$^2$Myr$^{-1}$; we confirm the robustness of the high-energy break, with a typical value $Delta_hsim 0.2$. We also find a hint for a similar (reversed) feature at low rigidity around the B/C peak ($sim 4$GV) which might be related to some effective damping scale in the magnetic turbulence.
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