Galactic electron and positron properties from cosmic ray and radio observations
D. Grasso, G. Di Bernardo, C. Evoli, D. Gaggero, L. Maccione
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4 pages, 6 figs. Accepted oral contribution (559) to the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2013), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2-9 July, 2013. Some of the results are obtained with the DRAGON code (http://dragon.hepforge.org)
We perform a consistent modeling of cosmic ray electrons, positrons and of the radio emission of the Galaxy. For the time we reproduce all relevant data sets between 1 GeV and 1 TeV including the recent AMS-02 positron fraction results.
We show that below few GeV cosmic ray and radio data require that electron primary spectrum to be drastically suppressed and the propagated spectrum be dominated by secondary particles. Above 10 GeV an electron + positron extra-component with a hard spectrum is required. The positron spectrum measured below few GeV is consistently reproduced only within low reacceleration models. We also constrain the scale-height of the cosmic-ray distribution showing that a thin halo ($z_t \lsim 2 \kpc$) is excluded.
We present a simple calculation of the flux of secondary positrons produced in the ISM that is based only on priors. Our calculated ISM flux agrees very well with that calculated with the elaborate GALPROP code. It confirms that secondary production of positrons in the ISM by the primary cosmic rays cannot explain the observed sub-TeV flux of CR positrons. Moreover, we show that once energy loss of positrons in source and in the ISM are included, secondary production inside the CR sources plus the ISM does explain the measured near-Earth flux of cosmic ray positrons.
The annihilation of positrons in the Milky Way galaxy has been observed for $\sim 50$ years however the production sites of these positrons remains hard to identify. The observed morphology of positron annihilation gamma-rays provides information on the annihilation sites of these Galactic positrons. It is understood that the positrons responsible for the annihilation signal originate at MeV energies. The majority of sources of MeV positrons occupy the thin, star forming disk of the Milky Way. If positrons propagate far from their sources, we must develop accurate models of positron propagatio…
The positron flux measured near Earth shows a rise with energy beyond 30 GeV. We show that this rise may be compatible with the production of positrons in $p γ$ interactions in the jets of microquasars.
A precision measurement by AMS-02 of the positron fraction in primary cosmic rays is presented on this proceeding. Over the last two decades, there has been a strong interest in the cosmic ray positron fraction which exhibit an excess of high energy positrons whose origin is still highly uncertain. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) is a general purpose high-energy particle physics detector operational on the International Space Station since May 2011. During its unique long duration mission AMS-02 is collecting large amount of data to study the behavior of cosmic ray electrons and posit…
Precision measurements by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) on the International Space Station of the primary cosmic-ray electron flux and the positron flux will be discussed. The electron flux and the positron flux each require a description beyond a single power-law spectrum. Both the electron flux and the positron flux change their behavior at ~30 GeV but the fluxes are significantly different in their magnitude and energy dependence. Between 20 and 200 GeV the positron spectral index is significantly harder than the electron spectral index. The determination of the different behavio…
The positron fraction observed by PAMELA and other experiments up to ~ 100 GeV is analyzed in terms of models of cosmic-ray propagation. It is shown that generically we expect the positron fraction to reach ~ 0.6 at energies of several TeV, and its energy dependence bears an intimate but subtle connection with that of the boron to carbon ratio in cosmic rays. The observed positron fraction can be fitted in a model that assumes a significant fraction of the boron below ~ 10 GeV is generated through spallation of cosmic-ray nuclei in a cocoonlike region surrounding the sources, and the positrons…
Assuming Galactic positrons do not go far before annhilating, a difference between the observed 511 keV annihilation flux distribution and that of positron production, expected from beta-plus decay in Galactic iron nucleosynthesis, was evoked as evidence of a new source and a signal of dark matter. We show, however, that the dark mater sources can not account for the observed positronium fraction without extensive propagation. Yet with such propagation, standard nucleosynthetic sources can fully account for the spatial differences and the positronium fraction, leaving no signal for dark mater …
High energy cosmic ray electrons and positrons probe the local properties of our Galaxy. In fact, electromagnetic energy losses limit the typical propagation scale of GeV-TeV electrons and positrons to a few kpc. In the diffusion model, nearby and dominant sources may produce an observable dipole anisotropy in the cosmic ray fluxes. We present a detailed study on the role of anisotropies from nearby sources in the interpretation of the observed GeV-TeV cosmic ray electron and positrons fluxes. We compute predictions for the anisotropies from known astrophysical sources as supernova remnants an…
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has released high-precision data for cosmic rays, and has verified an excess of positrons relative to expectations from cosmic ray interactions in the interstellar medium. An exciting and well-known possibility for the excess is production of electron-positron pairs by annihilating dark matter particles in the halo of the Galaxy. We have constructed a new scenario for propagation of cosmic rays, based on the 2000 SMILI results and various other astrophysics observations and measurements, in which the positron excess is due to secondary production. The scenario i…
We show that the positron excess measured by the PAMELA experiment in the region between 10 and 100 GeV may well be a natural consequence of the standard scenario for the origin of Galactic cosmic rays. The 'excess' arises because of positrons created as secondary products of hadronic interactions inside the sources, but the crucial physical ingredient which leads to a natural explanation of the positron flux is the fact that the secondary production takes place in the same region where cosmic rays are being accelerated. Therefore secondary positrons (and electrons) participate in the accelera…
The cosmic-ray positron flux calculated using the cosmic-ray nuclei interactions in our Galaxy cannot explain observed data above 10 GeV. An excess in the measured positron flux is therefore open to interpretation. Nearby pulsars, located within sub-kiloparsec range of the Solar system, are often invoked as plausible sources contributing to the excess. We show that an additional, sub-dominant population of sources together with the contributions from a few nearby pulsars can explain the latest positron excess data from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). We simultaneously model, using the D…
We investigate the possibility of secondary production as the source of cosmic ray (CR) positrons, taking into account observed electron and antiproton spectra and allowing that the reported steepening in the AMS-02 positron spectrum may be due to radiative losses. Using a simple argument based on the antiproton spectrum, we show that positrons cannot be purely secondary. Namely, the antiproton to positron ratio requires that positrons be uncooled up to a few hundred GeV. This requirement implies that CR protons escape from the Galaxy too quickly to reproduce the observed antiproton flux. We f…
In this symposium the Fermi-LAT collaboration released the results of its measurement of the $e^-$ and $e^+$ separate spectra, obtained using the Earth magnetic field. Those results confirm PAMELA finding of an increasing positron fraction above 10 GeV and allow, for the first time independently on the electron spectrum, to reject cosmic ray spallation onto the ISM as the dominant positron production mechanism above that energy. We show, for two different propagation setups, that double component models which were developed to provide a consistent interpretation of PAMELA positron fraction and…
AMS instrument aboard the International Space Station is a high precision instrument capable of collecting large statistics on cosmic ray intensities and as such has started making highly significant contributions to Astroparticle Physics. In order to fully benefit from these observations, the positron fraction in cosmic rays in their recent publication and other results that will follow, the models to interpret the results have to be equally good. We enlarge on this remark by citing examples from the currently popular model and one of our own fitting the observed spectra of positrons, extendi…
The recent report by the PAMELA team of the observed rise in the cosmic-ray positron fraction above a few GeV and the report of an excess of cosmic-ray electrons around a few hundred GeV by the ATIC collaboration has resulted in a flurry of publications interpreting these observations either as a possible signature from the decay of dark matter or as a contribution from isolated astrophysical sources. While those interpretations are scientifically exciting, the possibility that measurements are contaminated by misidentified cosmic ray protons can not be ignored.
We discuss the acceleration and escape of secondary particles, especially positrons produced by hadronic interactions in a supernova remnant (SNR) shock. During the shock acceleration, protons would interact with ambient gas and produce charged secondary particles, which would also be accelerated in a SNR and injected into the interstellar medium as cosmic-rays (CRs). Some previous studies showed that the resulting positron spectrum at the SNR shock is harder than the primary proton spectrum, and proposed that the positron excess observed by PAMELA can be explained with this process. We calcul…
Secondary positrons produced inside Galactic Molecular Clouds (GMCs) can significantly contribute to the observed positron spectrum on Earth. Multi-wavelength data of GMCs are particularly useful in building this model. A very recent survey implemented the optical/IR dust extinction measurements to trace 567 GMCs within 4 kpc of Earth, residing in the Galactic plane. We use the updated catalog of GMCs reported in recent papers, distributed in the Galactic plane, to find the secondary positrons produced in them in interactions of cosmic rays with molecular hydrogen. Moreover, by analyzing the \…
We use 15 years of $γ$-ray data from INTEGRAL/SPI in a refined investigation of the morphology of the Galactic bulge positron annihilation signal. Our spatial analysis confirms that the signal traces the old stellar population in the bulge and reveals for the first time that it traces the boxy bulge and nuclear stellar bulge. Using a 3D smoothing kernel, we find that the signal is smeared out over a characteristic length scale of $150 \pm 50\,$pc, suggesting either annihilation in situ at astrophysical sources kicked at formation or positron propagation away from sources. The former is disfavo…
Recent precision measurements of the flux of cosmic ray positrons by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer show that the spectrum has a marked softening feature for energies close to one TeV. A possible interpretation of this result is that the observed feature measures the maximum energy of a new hard source of positrons perhaps associated to dark matter self--annihilation or decay, or to positron accelerators. A gradual hardening of the positron flux centered at $E \simeq 25$~GeV can also be understood as the signature of the transition where the new source overtakes the conventional component due…
The positron fraction in cosmic rays was found to be steadily increasing in function of energy, above $\sim$10 GeV. This behaviour contradicts standard astrophysical mechanisms, in which positrons are secondary particles, produced in the interactions of primary cosmic rays during the propagation in the interstellar medium. The observed anomaly in the positron fraction triggered a lot of excitement, as it could be interpreted as an indirect signature of the presence of dark matter species in the Galaxy. Alternatively, it could be produced by nearby astrophysical sources, such as pulsars. Both h…
With experimental results of AMS on the spectra of cosmic ray (CR) $e^{-}$, $e^{+}$, $e^{-}+e^{+}$ and positron fraction, as well as new measurements of CR $e^{-}+e^{+}$ flux by HESS, one can better understand the CR lepton ($e^{-}$ and $e^{+}$) spectra and the puzzling electron-positron excess above $\sim$10 GeV. In this article, spectra of CR $e^{-}$ and $e^{+}$ are fitted with a physically motivated simple model, and their injection spectra are obtained with a one-dimensional propagation model including the diffusion and energy loss processes. Our results show that the electron-positron exc…
Recent γ-ray observations suggest that the γ-ray millisecond pulsar (MSP) population is separated into two sub-classes with respect to the pair multiplicity. Here, we calculate the cosmic ray electron/positron spectra from MSPs. Based on the assumption of the equipartition in the pulsar wind region the typical energy of electrons/positrons ejected by a MSP with the pair multiplicity of order unity is \sim 50 TeV. In this case, we find that a large peak at 10 - 50 TeV energy range would be observed in the cosmic ray electron/positron spectrum. Even if the fraction of pair starved MSPs is 10%, t…
The signature of positron annihilation, namely the 511 keV $γ$-ray line, was first detected coming from the direction of the Galactic center in the 1970's, but the source of Galactic positrons still remains a puzzle. The measured flux of the annihilation corresponds to an intense steady source of positron production, with an annihilation rate on the order of $\sim10^{43}$~e$^{+}$/s. The 511 keV emission is the strongest persistent Galactic $γ$-ray line signal and it shows a concentration towards the Galactic center region. An additional low-surface brightness component is aligned with the Gala…
The locally observed cosmic ray spectrum has several puzzling features, such as the excess of positrons and antiprotons above $\sim 20$ GeV and the discrepancy in the slopes of the spectra of cosmic ray protons and heavier nuclei in the TeV-PeV energy range. We show that these features are consistently explained by a nearby source which was active $\sim 2$ Myr ago and has injected $(1-2)\times 10^{50}$ erg in cosmic rays. The transient nature of the source and its overall energy budget point to the supernova origin of this local cosmic ray source. The age of the supernova suggests that the loc…
Launched on the 11th of June 2008, the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has made several outstanding scientific contributions to the high energy astrophysics community. One of these contributions was the high statistics measurement of the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) electron + positron spectrum from 20 GeV to 1 TeV. The Fermi satellite is in a nearly circular orbit with an inclination of 25.6 degrees at an altitude of 565 km. Given this orbit it is possible to measure the GCR electrons + positrons down to roughly 5 GeV. However, this lower limit in energy is highly dependent on the orbital posit…
The positron fraction in cosmic rays was found to be a steadily increasing in function of energy, above $\sim$ 10 GeV. This behaviour contradicts standard astrophysical mechanisms, in which positrons are secondary particles, produced in the interactions of primary cosmic rays during the propagation in the interstellar medium. The observed anomaly in the positron fraction triggered a lot of excitement, as it could be interpreted as an indirect signature of the presence of dark matter species in the Galaxy. Alternatively, it could be produced by nearby astrophysical sources, such as pulsars. Bot…
The Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has collected the largest ever sample of high-energy cosmic-ray electron and positron events since the beginning of its operation. Potential anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic-ray electrons or positrons could be a signature of the presence of nearby sources. We use almost seven years of data with energies above 42 GeV processed with the Pass~8 reconstruction. The present data sample can probe dipole anisotropies down to a level of $10^{-3}$. We take into account systematic effects that could mimic true anisotro…
The spectral shape of cosmic ray positrons and antiprotons has been accurately measured in the broad kinetic energy range 1-350 GeV. In the higher part of this range (E > 30 GeV) the e+ and pbar are both well described by power laws with spectral indices gamma[e+] = 2.77 +-0.02 and gamma[pbar] = 2.78 +- 0.04 that are approximately equal to each other and to the spectral index of protons. In the same energy range the positron/antiproton flux ratio has the approximately constant value 2.04+-0.04, that is consistent with being equal to the ratio e_/pbar calculated for the conventional mechanism o…
Recent observations by the PAMELA and AMS-02 telescopes have uncovered an anomalous rise in the positron fraction at energies above 10~GeV. One possible explanation for this excess is the production of primary electron/positron pairs through electromagnetic cascades in pulsar magnetospheres. This process results in a high multiplicity of electron/positron pairs within the wind-termination shock of pulsar wind nebula (PWN). A consequence of this scenario is that no circular polarization should be observed within PWN, since the contributions from electrons and positrons exactly cancel. Here we n…
A multichannel analysis of cosmic ray electron and positron spectra and of the diffuse synchrotron emission of the Galaxy is performed by using the DRAGON code. This study is aimed at probing the interstellar electron source spectrum down to E ~ 1 GeV and at constraining several propagation parameters. We find that above 4 GeV the electron source spectrum is compatible with a power-law of index -2.5. Below 4 GeV instead it must be significantly suppressed and the total lepton spectrum is dominated by secondary particles. The positron spectrum and fraction measured below a few GeV are consisten…
The recently observed data by AMS-02 clearly confirms that the positron flux rises with energy and shows a peak near a few hundred GeV. This rising positron flux cannot be explained by interactions of cosmic rays with interstellar hydrogen gas. In this paper, our goal is to study whether secondary production due to cosmic ray interactions in nearby Galactic Molecular Clouds (GMCs) can contribute significantly to the observed positron spectrum on Earth. Due to the progress in multi-wavelength astronomy, many new GMCs have been discovered in our Galaxy recently. Using large scale CO survey, 1064…
Gamma ray emission of 511 keV lines arising from electron-positron annihilation has been detected from the Galaxy since the 70s. Spatially resolved observations using the INTEGRAL satellite have shown its full sky distribution to be strongly concentrated in the Galactic bulge, with a smaller contribution from the disk, unlike the situation in any other wavelength. The puzzling distribution of the positrons gave rise to various suggestions, including stellar nucleosynthesis in core-collapse (CC) and type Ia thermonuclear supernovae (SNe), accreting compact objects, and more "exotic" explanation…
We want to estimate whether the positrons produced by the beta plus decay of 26Al, 44Ti and 56Ni synthesised in massive stars and supernovae are sufficient to explain the 511 keV annihilation emission observed in our Galaxy. Such a possibility has often been put forward in the past. We developed a Monte Carlo Galactic propagation code for ~MeV positrons in which the Galactic interstellar medium, the Galactic magnetic field (GMF) and the propagation are finely described. This code allows us to simulate the spatial distribution of the 511 keV annihilation emission. We test several GMFs models an…
The Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has collected the largest ever sample of high-energy cosmic-ray electron and positron events. Possible features in their energy spectrum could be a signature of the presence of nearby astrophysical sources, or of more exotic sources, such as annihilation or decay of dark matter (DM) particles in the Galaxy. In this paper for the first time we search for a delta-like line feature in the cosmic-ray electron and positron spectrum. We also search for a possible feature originating from DM particles annihilating into electron-posi…
The local pulsar and its progenitor, SNR, can together accelerate the positron, electron and nuclei to very high energy. The famous excesses of positron(nuclei) above $20$($200$) GeV possibly come from such kind of local source. This hints that the primary electron should also hold "excess" above $200$ GeV, synchronously accelerated along with the nuclei. The recent precise measurement of sharp dropoff at 284 GeV of positron by AMS-02 experiment takes chance to study this expected electron excess. In this work, the spatially-dependent propagation with a local source is used to reproduce the sp…
Observations of soft gamma rays emanating from the Milky Way from SPI/\textit{INTEGRAL} reveal the annihilation of $\sim2\times10^{43}$ positrons every second in the Galactic bulge. The origin of these positrons, which annihilate to produce a prominent emission line centered at 511 keV, has remained mysterious since their discovery almost 50 years ago. A plausible origin for the positrons is in association with the intense star formation ongoing in the Galactic center. Moreover, there is strong evidence for a nuclear outflow in the Milky Way. We find that advective transport and subsequent ann…
Recently cosmic ray electrons and positrons, i.e. cosmic ray charged leptons, have been observed. To understand the distances from our solar system to the sources of such lepton cosmic rays, it is important to understand energy losses from cosmic electrodynamic fields. Energy losses for ultra-relativistic electrons and/or positrons due to classical electrodynamic bremsstrahlung are computed. The energy losses considered are (i) due to Thompson scattering from fluctuating electromagnetic fields in the background cosmic thermal black body radiation and (ii) due to the synchrotron radiation losse…
Focusing on the electron and positron spectrum measured with CALET, which shows characteristic structures, we calculate flux contributions of cosmic rays escaped from supernova remnants, which were randomly born. We adopt a Monte Carlo method to take into account the stochastic property of births of nearby sources. We find that without a complicated energy dependence of the diffusion coefficient, simple power-law diffusion coefficients can produce spectra similar to the CALET spectrum even with a dispersion in the injection index. The positron component measured with AMS-02 is consistent with …
Designed as a high-sensitivity gamma-ray observatory, the Fermi Large Area Telescope is also an electron detector with a large acceptance exceeding 2 sq-mt sr at 300 GeV. Building on the gamma-ray analysis, we have developed an efficient electron detection strategy which provides sufficient background rejection for measurement of the steeply-falling electron spectrum up to 1 TeV. Our high precision data show that the electron spectrum falls with energy as E^(-3.0) and does not exhibit prominent spectral features
Until fairly recently, it was widely accepted that local cosmic ray spectra were largely featureless power laws, containing limited information on their acceleration and transport. This viewpoint is currently being revised in the light of evidence for a variety of spectral breaks in the fluxes of cosmic ray nuclei. Here, we focus on cosmic ray electrons and positrons which at the highest energies must be of local origin due to strong radiative losses. We consider a pure diffusion model for their Galactic transport and determine its free parameters by fitting data in a wide energy range: measur…
Dark matter particles may be captured by a star and then thermalized in the star's core. At the end of its life a massive star collapses suddenly and a compact object is formed. The dark matter particles redistribute accordingly. In the inelastic dark matter model, an extended dense dark matter mini-halo surrounding the neutron star may be formed. Such mini-halos may be common in the Galaxy. The electron/positron flux resulting in the annihilation of dark matter particles, however, is unable to give rise to observable signal unless a nascent mini-halo is within a distance \sim a few 0.1 pc fro…
Precision measurements of the positron component in the cosmic radiation provide important information about the propagation of cosmic rays and the nature of particle sources in our Galaxy. The satellite-borne experiment PAMELA has been used to make a new measurement of the cosmic-ray positron flux and fraction that extends previously published measurements up to 300 GeV in kinetic energy. The combined measurements of the cosmic-ray positron energy spectrum and fraction provide a unique tool to constrain interpretation models. During the recent solar minimum activity period from July 2006 to D…
Low energy cosmic rays are modulated by the solar activity when they propagation in the heliosphere, leading to ambiguities in understanding their acceleration at sources and propagation in the Milky Way. By means of the precise measurements of the $e^-$, $e^+$, $e^-+e^+$, and $e^+/(e^-+e^+)$ spectra by AMS-02 near the Earth, as well as the very low energy measurements of the $e^-+e^+$ fluxes by Voyager-1 far away from the Sun, we derive the local interstellar spectra (LIS) of $e^-$ and $e^+$ components individually. Our method is based on a non-parametric description of the LIS of $e^-$ and $…
We reveal that the energy spectra of electrons-positrons in primary cosmic rays measured at atmosphere top have double structures: an excess component $Φ^s_{e^+}(E)=Φ^s_{e^-}(E)$ around $400 GeV$, which origins from a strong $e^+e^-$-source and the distorted background $Φ^0_{e^-}(E)$. We supposed that the difference between AMS-CALET and Fermi-LAT-DAMPE data origins from the energy loss of the fluxes due to the anomalous bremsstrahlung effect at a special window. The evolution of spectra under anomalous bremsstrahlung effect satisfies an improved electromagnetic cascade equation. The above spe…
We show that the observed fluxes, spectra and sky distributions of the high energy diffuse backgrounds of astronomical neutrinos, gamma rays and cosmic ray positrons satisfy simple relations expected from their common production in hadronic collisions of high energy cosmic rays (CRs) with diffuse matter. This provides compelling evidence that the high energy neutrino, gamma ray, and positron backgrounds have a common origin - hadronic meson production by cosmic rays in our Galaxy and in external galaxies rather than through the decay/annihilation of dark matter particles.
Previously, [1207.0458] proposed an astrophysical explanation of narrow gamma-ray line-like feature(s) at ~100 GeV from Galactic Center region observed by Fermi/LAT [1205.4700]. The model of [1207.0458] is based on the inverse Compton scattering of external ultra-violet/X-ray radiation by a cold ultra-relativistic electron-positron pulsar wind. We show that the extra broad ~30 MeV component should arise from Comptonization of cosmic microwave background radiation. We estimate the main parameters of this component and show that it can be detectable with MeV telescopes such as CGRO/COMPTEL. The …
We analyse SPI/INTEGRAL data on the 511 keV line from the Galactic Centre, accumulated over ~6 years of observations. We decompose the X-ray and soft gamma-ray emission of the central part of the Milky Way into a relatively compact "Bulge" and a more extended "Disk" components and report their spectral properties. The Bulge component shows a prominent 511 keV line and essentially no flux at 1.8 MeV, while the Disk component on the contrary contains a prominent 1.8 MeV line and a very weak annihilation line. We show that the spectral shape of the annihilation radiation (the narrow 511 keV line …
Cosmic electrons with energies in the TeV range lose their energy rapidly through synchrotron radiation and inverse Compton processes, resulting in a relatively short lifetime (~ 10^5 years). They are only visible from comparatively nearby sources (<1 kpc). Unexpected features in their spectrum at a few hundreds GeV, as measured by several experiments (ATIC, Fermi and H.E.S.S. among others), might be caused by local sources such as pulsars or by dark matter annihilation/decay. In order to investigate these possibilities, new measurements in the TeV energy region are needed. Since the completio…
This review concentrates on the results obtained, over the last ten years, on the astrophysics of high-energy cosmic ray electrons and positrons. The anomalies, observed in the data of recent experiments (possible bump in the electron spectrum and the PAMELA anomaly in the positron fraction) are discussed through the systematic use of simple analytical solutions of the transport equations for cosmic ray electrons. Three main ways of explaining the origin of the anomalies are considered: the conservative way supposing the positrons to be pure secondary particles; the nearby sources like pulsars…
The flux of cosmic-ray high-energy positrons has recently been measured by AMS with unprecedented precision. This flux is well above the expectation from secondary positrons made by the observed fluxes of nuclear cosmic rays impinging on the interstellar medium. Various authors have pointed out that the positron excess may originate at the primary cosmic-ray source itself, rather than in the more local ISM, thus avoiding the temptation to invoke a dark-matter decay or annihilation origin, or nearby pulsars. We investigate the possibility that the source is the one of a comprehensive model of g…
The AMS-02 detector is operating on the International Space Station since May 2011. More than 30 billion events have been collected by the instrument in the first two years of data taking. A precision measurement of the positron fraction and of the positron flux in primary cosmic rays up to 350 GeV, of the electron flux up to 500 GeV and of the combined electron plus positron flux up to 700 GeV are presented. The separate and combined electron and positron fluxes are preliminary and represent work in progress. Systematic uncertainties must still be investigated further.
Observations of cosmic ray electrons have made great strides in the last decade and direct observations of the all-electron flux as well as separate electron and positron spectra are now available up to ~ 1 TeV. In this invited contribution to the 2022 edition of the Rencontres de Moriond on Very High Energy Phenomena in the Universe, we review the data on cosmic ray electron and positron spectra at TeV energies and offer general comments on their interpretation. Subsequently, we focus on the study of the stochastic fluctuations and a secondary model for the positron excess.
One aim of cosmic ray measurements is the search for possible signatures of annihilating or decaying dark matter. The so-called positron excess has attracted a lot of attention in this context. On the other hand it has been proposed that the data might challenge the established diffusion model for cosmic ray propagation. We investigate an inhomogeneous diffusion model by solving the corresponding equations analytically. Depending on the propagation parameters we find that the spectral features of the positron spectrum are affected significantly. We also discuss the influence of the inhomogenei…
We show that the flux of the high-energy cosmic ray positrons observed near Earth is that expected from the decay of mesons produced by the primary cosmic rays (CRs) in the local interstellar medium.
The recent observations of the positron fraction in cosmic rays by PAMELA indicate that the fraction of positrons to the total electronic component in cosmic rays initially decreases in the energy region 1-10 GeV and increases thereafter. In this paper, we show that it is natural to expect such an increase of the positron fraction within the context of cosmic ray propagation models. It is shown that this ratio should reach an asymptotic value of ~0.6 at very high energies. The specific measurements by PAMELA help us to distinguish amongst various models for cosmic ray propagation, and in parti…
The electron and positron cosmic rays puzzle has triggered a revolution in the field of astroparticle physics. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the unexpected rise of the positron fraction, observed by HEAT and PAMELA experiments, for energies larger than few GeVs. In this work, we study sources of positron cosmic rays related to annihilation of dark matter and secondary production. In both cases, we consider the impact of uncertainties related to dark matter physics, nuclear physics and propagation of cosmic rays, finding that the largest uncertainties come from propagation. We f…
We show that the cosmic-ray positron excess measured by PAMELA and AMS could be induced by Dark Matter annihilations in a local over-density. In such a context leptophilic DM is not needed and good fits to positron data, in agreement with antiproton and gamma-ray measurements, are obtained for DM annihilations to $WW$, $hh$, $ZZ$, $ t \bar t$, $b \bar b$, $q\bar q$ channels. The classic Dark Matter candidates, such as the pure supersymmetric Wino with standard thermal annihilation cross-section, can fit the positron excess, without invoking any additional assumption on Dark Matter properties.
