Observations of diffuse fluxes of cosmic neutrinos
Christopher H. Wiebusch
备注:
Prepared for "Neutrino Astronomy - Current Status, Future Prospects" (World Scientific) Edited by: Thomas Gaisser (University of Delaware, USA), Albrecht Karle (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
In this contribution the current observational results for the diffuse flux of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos are reviewed. In order to understand the science implications, the measurements in different detection channels are discussed and results are compared. The discussion focuses is the energy spectrum, the flavor ratio and large scale anisotropy.
We study spectral distortions of diffuse ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrino flavour fluxes resulting due to physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). Even large spectral differences between flavours at the source are massaged into a common shape at earth by SM oscillations, thus, any significant observed spectral differences are an indicator of new physics present in the oscillation probability during propagation. Neutrino decay and Lorentz symmetry violation (LV) are examples, and result in significant distortion of the fluxes and the well-known bounds on them, which may allow UHE detectors to pr…
The ANTARES neutrino telescope detects the Cherenkov radiation emitted along the path of charged particles produced in neutrino interactions. ANTARES is sensitive to all flavors even though it is optimized for muon neutrinos. Several algorithms estimating the deposited energy in the active volume of the detector have been developed and applied to the reconstruction of the primary neutrino energy - this allows to improve the search for a diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos. The search for a diffuse flux of cosmic neutrinos at very high energies (E_ν> 30 TeV) is updated using 4 years of data…
The Milky Way is surrounded by a gravitationally bound gas corona extending up to the Galaxy's virial radius. Interactions of cosmic-ray particles with this gas give rise to energetic secondary gamma rays and neutrinos. We present a quantitative analysis of the neutrino and gamma-ray fluxes from the corona of the Milky Way together with a combined contribution of coronae of other galaxies. The high-energy neutrino flux is insufficient to explain the IceCube results, while the contribution to the FERMI-LAT diffuse gamma-ray flux is not negligible.
Some generalizations of the relation between high-energy astrophysical neutrino and cosmic ray fluxes are obtained, taking into account present results on the cosmic ray spectrum and composition as well as a more realistic modeling of the Galactic and extragalactic cosmic ray components down to PeV energies. It is found that the level of neutrino fluxes measured by IceCube can be consistent with sources that are thin to escaping protons. This could also make it easier for heavier nuclei to be emitted from the sources without suffering excessive disintegration processes.
We present an updated calculation of the uncertainties on the atmospheric muon-neutrino flux arising from cosmic-ray primaries. For the first time, we include recent measurements of the cosmic-ray primaries collected since 2005. We apply a statistical technique that allows the determination of correlations between the parameters of the GSHL primary-flux parametrisation and the incorporation of these correlations into the uncertainty on the muon-neutrino flux. We obtain an uncertainty related to the primary cosmic rays of around $(5\text{--}15)\%$, depending on energy, which is about a factor o…
The Tibet ASgamma experiment just reported their measurement of sub-PeV diffuse gamma ray emission from the Galactic disk, with the highest energy up to 957 TeV. These gamma-rays are most likely the hadronic origin by cosmic ray interaction with interstellar gas in the Galaxy. This measurement provides direct evidence to the hypothesis that the Galactic cosmic rays can be accelerated beyond PeV energies. In this work, we try to explain the sub-PeV diffuse gamma-ray spectrum within cosmic rays diffusive propagation model. We find there is a tension between the sub-PeV diffuse gamma rays and the…
Resonant W and Z Boson Production in FSRQ Jets: Implications for Diffuse Neutrino Fluxes
Korea Space Weather Center, Korea AeroSpace Administration(韩国空间天气中心,韩国航空航天局);Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute(韩国天体与空间科学研究所);North-Caucasus Center for Mathematical Research, North-Caucasus Federal University(北高加索数学研究中心,北高加索联邦大学)
Cosmic rays are a fundamental source of ionization for molecular and diffuse clouds, influencing their chemical, thermal, and dynamical evolution. The amount of cosmic rays inside a cloud also determines the $γ$-ray flux produced by hadronic collisions between cosmic rays and cloud material. We study the spectrum of cosmic rays inside and outside of a diffuse cloud, by solving the stationary transport equation for cosmic rays including diffusion, advection and energy losses due to ionization of neutral hydrogen atoms. We found that the cosmic ray spectrum inside a diffuse cloud differs from th…
Cosmic rays are a fundamental source of ionization for molecular and diffuse clouds, influencing their chemical, thermal, and dynamical evolution. The amount of cosmic rays inside a cloud also determines the $γ$-ray flux produced by hadronic collisions between cosmic rays and cloud material. We study the spectrum of cosmic rays inside and outside of a diffuse cloud, by solving the stationary transport equation for cosmic rays including diffusion, advection and energy losses due to ionization of neutral hydrogen atoms. We found that the cosmic ray spectrum inside a diffuse cloud differs from th…
The possibility of estimating the mass composition of primary cosmic rays above the knee of its energy spectrum through the study of high energy gamma rays, muons and neutrinos produced in the interactions of cosmic rays with the solar ambient matter and radiation has been explored. It is found that the theoretical fluxes of TeV gamma rays, muons and neutrinos from a region around $15^{o}$ of the Sun are sensitive to mass composition of cosmic rays in the PeV energy range. The experimental prospects for detection of such TeV gamma rays/neutrinos by future experiments are discussed.
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.
The origin of the knee in cosmic ray spectrum remains to be an unsolved fundamental problem. There are various kinds of models which predict different break positions and the compositions of the knee. In this work, we suggest to use diffuse $γ$-rays and neutrinos as probes to test these models. Based on several typical types of the composition models, the diffuse $γ$-ray and neutrino spectra are calculated, which show distinctive cutoff behaviours at energies from tens of TeV to multi-PeV. The expected flux will be observable by the newly upgraded Tibet-AS$γ$+MD (muon detector) experiment as w…
Cosmic rays accelerated to ultra-high energies (E>4x10^19 eV) in electric fields in accretion discs around supermassive black holes are discussed. Particle injection spectra are assumed to be harder than those formed in acceleration on shock fronts. It turned out that cosmic rays with injection spectra supposed contribute a little in the particle flux detected with ground-based arrays. But in the extragalactic space particle generate a noticeable flux of the diffuse gamma-ray emission compared with the data obtained with the Fermi LAT instrument (onboard the Fermi space observatory). The inten…
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 diffuse flux of cosmic neutrinos has been measured by the IceCube Observatory from TeV to PeV energies. We show that an improved characterization of this flux at the lower energies, TeV and sub-TeV, reveals important information on the nature of the astrophysical neutrino sources in a model-independent way. Most significantly, it could confirm the present indications that neutrinos originate in cosmic environments that are optically thick to GeV-TeV $γ$-rays. This conclusion will become inevitable if a steeper or even uninterrupted neutrino power law is observed in the TeV region. In such …
Diffuse interstellar clouds show large abundances of H_3^+ which can be maintained only by a high ionization rate of H_2. Cosmic rays are the dominant ionization mechanism in this environment, so the large ionization rate implies a high cosmic-ray flux, and a large amount of energy residing in cosmic rays. In this paper we find that the standard propagated cosmic-ray spectrum predicts an ionization rate much lower than that inferred from H_3^+. Low-energy (~10 MeV) cosmic rays are the most efficient at ionizing hydrogen, but cannot be directly detected; consequently, an otherwise unobservable …
Cosmic rays (CRs) generate diffuse emission while interacting with the Galactic magnetic field (B-field), the interstellar gas and the radiation field. This diffuse emission extends from radio, microwaves, through X-rays, to high-energy gamma rays. Diffuse emission has considerably increased the interest of the astrophysical community due to recent detailed observations by Planck, Fermi-LAT, and by very-high-energy Cherenkov telescopes. Observations of this emission and comparison with detailed predictions are used to gain information on the properties of CRs, such as their density, spectra, d…
The extragalactic sources of ultra-high-energy (E > 4x10^19 eV) cosmic rays that make a small contribution to the flux of particles recorded by ground-based arrays are discussed. We show that cosmic rays from such sources can produce a noticeable diffuse gamma-ray flux in intergalactic space compared to the the data obtained with Fermi LAT (onboard the Fermi space observatory). A possible type of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in which cosmic-ray protons can be accelerated to energies 1021 eV is considered as an illustration of such sources. We conclude that ultra-high-energy cosmic rays from t…
Exploring neutrino loss with diffuse astrophysical neutrino fluxes
University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU(巴斯克大学);Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú(秘鲁天主教 Pontificia 大学);Stony Brook University(石溪大学);Universitat de Barcelona(巴塞罗那大学);Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats (ICREA)(加泰罗尼亚高级研究学院)
The interaction of cosmic rays with the gas contained in our Galaxy is a guaranteed source of diffuse high energy neutrinos. We provide expectations for this component by considering different assumptions for the cosmic ray distribution in the Galaxy which are intended to cover the large uncertainty in cosmic ray propagation models. We calculate the angular dependence of the diffuse galactic neutrino flux and the corresponding rate of High Energy Starting Events in IceCube by including the effect of detector angular resolution. Moreover we discuss the possibility to discriminate the galactic c…
In the last years the direct measurement of cosmic rays received a push forward by the possibility of conducting experiments on board long duration balloon flights, satellites and on the International Space Station. The increase in the collected statistics and the technical improvements in the construction of the detectors permit the fluxes measurement to be performed at higher energies with a reduced discrepancy among different experiments respect to the past. However, high statistical precision is not always associated to the needed precision in the estimation of systematics; features in the…
In this work, we revisit the all-sky Galactic diffuse $γ$-ray emission taking into account the new measurements of cosmic ray electron/positron spectrum by PAMELA, ATIC and Fermi, which show excesses of cosmic electrons/positrons beyond the expected fluxes in the conventional model. Since the origins of the extra electrons/positrons are not clear, we consider three different scenarios to account for the excesses: the astrophysical sources such as the Galactic pulsars, dark matter decay and annihilation. Further, new results from Fermi-LAT of the (extra-)Galactic diffuse $γ$-ray are adopted. Th…
The diffuse $γ$-ray emission was measured up to $957$ TeV by the Tibet-AS$γ$ experiment recently. Assuming that it is produced by the hadronic interaction between cosmic ray nuclei and the interstellar medium, it requires that the cosmic ray nuclei should be accelerated well beyond PeV energies. Measurements of the cosmic ray spectra for different species show diverse results at present. The Tibet experiments showed that the spectrum of proton plus helium has an early knee below PeV. If this is correct, the diffuse $γ$-ray emission would suggest an additional component of Galactic cosmic rays …
We use the recent measurement of the isotropic $γ$-ray background (IGRB) by Fermi LAT and analysis of the contribution of unresolved point $γ$-ray sources to IGRB to build constraints on the models of ultra-high cosmic rays (UHECR) origin. We also calculate the minimal expected diffuse $γ$-ray flux produced by UHECR interactions with an interstellar photon background. Finally, for the subclass of dark matter (DM) models with decaying weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP), we build constraints on the particle decay time using minimal expected contributions to the IGRB from unresolved poin…
The diffuse $γ$-ray spectrum at sub-PeV energy region has been measured for the first time by the Tibet-AS$γ$ experiment. It will shed new light on the understanding of origin and propagation of Galactic cosmic rays at very high energies. It has been pointed out that the traditional cosmic ray propagation model based on low energy measurements undershoot the new data, and modifications of the model with new ingredients or alternative propagation framework is required. In this work, we propose that the hadronic interactions between freshly accelerated cosmic rays and the medium surrounding the …
We demonstrate that the UHECRs produced in the nuclear cascade in the jet of Low-Luminosity Gamma-Ray Bursts (LL-GRBs) can describe the UHECR spectrum and composition and, at the same time, the diffuse neutrino flux at the highest energies. The radiation density in the source simultaneously controls the neutrino production and the development of the nuclear cascade, leading to a flux of nucleons and light nuclei describing even the cosmic-ray ankle at $5 \times 10^{18}$ eV. The derived source parameters are consistent with population studies, indicating a baryonic loading factor of about ten. …
The cosmic ray energy distributions contain spectral features, that is narrow energy regions where the slope of the spectrum changes rapidly. The identification and study of these features is of great importance to understand the astrophysical mechanisms of acceleration and propagation that form the spectra. In first approximation a spectral feature in often described as a discontinuous change in slope, however very valuable information is also contained in its width, that is the length of the interval in logarithm of energy where the change in spectral index develops. In this work we discuss …
Recent multifrequency observations contribute to derive a comprehensive picture of the origin and evolution of relativistic particles in galaxy clusters. In this review I briefly discuss theoretical aspects and open problems of this picture.
We study the annihilating dark matter contribution to the extra-galactic diffuse gamma-ray background spectrum, motivated by the recent observations of cosmic-ray positron/electron anomalies. The observed diffuse gamma-ray flux provides stringent constraint on dark matter models and we present upper bounds on the annihilation cross section of the dark matter. It is found that for the case of cored dark matter halo profile, the diffuse gamma-rays give more stringent bound compared with gamma-rays from the Galactic center. The Fermi satellite will make the bound stronger.
Cosmic rays fill up the entire volume of galaxies, providing an important source of heating and ionisation of the interstellar medium, and may play a significant role in the regulation of star formation and galactic evolution. Diffuse emissions from radio to high-energy gamma rays (> 100 MeV) arising from various interactions between cosmic rays and the interstellar medium, interstellar radiation field, and magnetic field, are currently the best way to trace the intensities and spectra of cosmic rays in the Milky Way and other galaxies. In this contribution, I describe our recent work to model…
We estimate the sensitivity of LHAASO telescope for the large angular scale diffuse gamma-ray flux in multi-TeV - multi-PeV energy range. We discuss possible sources of the signal in this energy range including the guaranteed flux from cosmic ray interactions in the interstellar medium and possible flux from decaying dark matter. We show that LHAASO will be able to detect the diffuse cosmic ray induced gamma-ray flux up to high Galactic latitude regions thus providing firm identification of the Galactic cosmic ray component of the astrophysical neutrino signal detected by IceCube and clarifica…
We discuss ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays (CR) from minor sources and their possible contribution to the extragalactic diffuse gamma-ray emission. As an illustration of minor sources we consider possible specific type of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in which supermassive black hole is surrounded by a super strong magnetic field of 10^(10)-10^(11) Gs. In this model we have calculated CR energy spectra at the Earth and intensity of cascade quanta produced by CRs in extragalactic space. Proceeding from numerical results and the data by Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array it is shown…
We study diffuse gamma-ray emission at intermediate Galactic latitudes measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope with the aim of searching for a signal from dark matter annihilation or decay. In the absence of a robust dark matter signal, we set conservative dark matter limits requiring that the dark matter signal does not exceed the observed diffuse gamma-ray emission. A second set of more stringent limits is derived based on modeling the foreground astrophysical diffuse emission. Uncertainties in the height of the diffusive cosmic-ray halo, the distribution of the cosmic-ray sources in the …
Current measurements of cosmic-ray fluxes have reached unprecedented accuracy thanks to the new generation of experiments, and in particular the AMS-02 mission. At the same time, significant progress has been made in the propagation models of galactic cosmic rays. These models include several propagation parameters, which are usually inferred from the ratios of secondary to primary cosmic rays, and which depend on the cross sections describing the collisions among the various species of cosmic-ray nuclei. At present, our knowledge of these cross sections in the energy range where cosmic-ray in…
The closest radio galaxies; Centaurus A, M87 and NGC 1275, have been detected from radio wavelengths to TeV $γ$-rays, and also studied as high-energy neutrino and ultra-high-energy cosmic ray potential emitters. Their spectral energy distributions show a double-peak feature, which is explained by synchrotron self-Compton model. However, TeV $γ$-ray measured spectra could suggest that very-high-energy $γ$-rays might have a hadronic origin. We introduce a lepto-hadronic model to describe the broadband spectral energy distribution; from radio to sub GeV photons as synchrotron self-Compton emissio…
Significant advances have been made in the understanding of the diffuse Galactic hard X-ray continuum emission using data from the INTEGRAL observatory. The diffuse hard power-law component seen with the INTEGRAL/SPI spectrometer has been identified with inverse-Compton emission from relativistic (GeV) electrons on the cosmic microwave background and Galactic interstellar radiation field. In the present analysis, SPI data from 2003 to 2009, with a total exposure time of ~ 10^8 s, are used to derive the Galactic ridge hard X-ray spatial distribution and spectrum between 20 keV and 2.4 MeV. Both…
Astrophysical neutrinos are expected to be produced in the interactions of ultra-high energy cosmic-rays with surrounding photons. The fluxes of the astrophysical neutrinos are highly dependent on the characteristics of the cosmic-ray sources, such as their cosmological distributions. We study possible constraints on the properties of cosmic-ray sources in a model-independent way using experimentally obtained diffuse neutrino flux above 100 PeV. The semi-analytic formula is derived to estimate the cosmogenic neutrino fluxes as functions of source evolution parameter and source extension in red…
The propagation of particles accelerated at supernova remnant shocks and escaping the parent remnants is likely to proceed in a strongly non-linear regime, due to the efficient self-generation of Alfvén waves excited through streaming instability near the sources. Depending on the amount of neutral hydrogen present in the regions around the sites of supernova explosions, cosmic rays may accumulate an appreciable grammage in the same regions and get self-confined for non-negligible times, which in turn results in an enhanced rate of production of secondaries. Here we calculate the contribution …
We provide our estimates of the intensity of the gamma-ray emission with an energy near 0.1 TeV generated in inrergalactic space in the interactions of cosmic rays with background emissions. We assume that the cosmic ray sources are point-like and these are active galactic nuclei. The following pjssible types of sources are considered: remote and powerful ones, at redshifts up to z=1.1, with a monoenergetic particle spectrum, E=10^21 eV; the same objects, but with a power-law particle spectrum; and nearby sources with redshifts 0<z<=0.0092, i.e. at distances no larger than 50 Mpc also with a p…
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…
Galactic Diffuse Gamma-Ray and Neutrino Emission from Cosmic-Ray Interactions in Stellar Atmospheres
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院紫金山天文台);School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院)
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…
The study of diffuse radio sources is essential to our knowledge of the physical conditions in clusters of galaxies and of the role that large scale magnetic fields play in the propagation of the relativistic particles in the intracluster medium (ICM). Due to dissipative processes, the thermal plasma of the ICM contains useless information about the formation of structures and CRs. Such past and current information is carried intact by its non-thermal emission caused by highly relativistic particles spiraling in large-scale magnetic fields. The diffuse radio emission is not associated with the…
We study the change in cosmic-ray pressure, the change in cosmic-ray density, and the level of cosmic-ray induced heating via Alfven-wave damping when cosmic rays move from a hot ionized plasma to a cool cloud embedded in that plasma. The general analysis method outlined here can apply to diffuse clouds in either the ionized interstellar medium or in galactic winds. We introduce a general-purpose model of cosmic-ray diffusion building upon the hydrodynamic approximation for cosmic rays (from McKenzie & Voelk and Breitschwerdt and collaborators). Our improved method self-consistently derives th…
We calculate the diffuse high energy (TeV - PeV) neutrino emission from hyperflares of Soft-Gamma Repeaters (SGRs), like the hyperflare risen from \astrobj{SGR 1806-20} on December 27 of 2004, within the framework of the fireball model. The fireball model for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can explain well the main features of this hyperflare and the subsequent multi-frequency terglow emission. The expected rate, $\sim 20-100$ Gpc$^{-3}$day$^{-1}$, of such hyperflares is well in excess of the GRBs rate. Our result shows that the contribution to the diffuse TeV-PeV neutrino background from such hyperf…
We investigate the ionization of the diffuse interstellar medium by cosmic rays by modeling their propagation along the wandering magnetic fields using a Monte Carlo method. We study how low-energy cosmic rays propagate in turbulent, translucent molecular clouds, and how they regulate the ionization and both lose and gain energy from the medium. As a test case, we use high spatial resolution (0.03 pc) CO maps of a well-studied high latitude translucent cloud, MBM 3, to model turbulence. The propagation problem is solved with a modified Monte Carlo procedure that includes trapping, energization…
The observed variability of the cosmic-ray intensity in the interplanetary space is driven by the evolution of the Sun's magnetic activity over its 11-year quasiperiodical cycle. Investigating the relationship between solar activity indices and cosmic-ray intensity measurements is then essential for understanding the fundamental processes of particle transport in the heliosphere. Here we have performed a global characterization the solar modulation of cosmic rays over the solar activity cycle and for different energies of the cosmic particles. We present our cross-correlation studies using dat…
Low energy cosmic rays are the major ionization agents of molecular clouds. However, it has been shown that, if the cosmic ray spectrum measured by Voyager 1 is representative of the whole Galaxy, the predicted ionization rate in diffuse clouds fails to reproduce data by 1-2 orders of magnitude, implying that an additional source of ionization must exist. One of the solutions proposed to explain this discrepancy is based on the existence of an unknown low energy (in the range 1 keV-1 MeV, not probed by Voyager) cosmic ray component, called carrot when first hypothesized by Reeves and collabora…
Synchrotron diffuse radiation (SDR) emission is one of the major Galactic components, in the 100 MHz up to 100 GHz frequency range. Its spectrum and sky map provide valuable measure of the galactic cosmic ray electrons (GCRE) in the relevant energy range, as well as of the strength and structure of the Galactic magnetic fields (GMF), both regular and random ones. This emission is an astrophysical sky foreground for the study of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), and the extragalactic microwave measurements, and it needs to be modelled as better as possible. In this regard, in order to get …
A shock-accelerated particle flux \propto p^-s, where p is the particle momentum, follows from simple theoretical considerations of cosmic-ray acceleration at nonrelativistic shocks followed by rigidity-dependent escape into the Galactic halo. A flux of shock-accelerated cosmic-ray protons with s ~ 2.8 provides an adequate fit to the Fermi-LAT gamma-ray emission spectra of high-latitude and molecular cloud gas when uncertainties in nuclear production models are considered. A break in the spectrum of cosmic-ray protons claimed by Neronov, Semikoz, & Taylor (PRL, 108, 051105, 2012) when fitting …
The gamma-ray sky >100 MeV is dominated by the diffuse emissions from interactions of cosmic rays with the interstellar gas and radiation fields of the Milky Way. Observations of these diffuse emissions provide a tool to study cosmic-ray origin and propagation, and the interstellar medium. We present measurements from the first 21 months of the Fermi-LAT mission and compare with models of the diffuse gamma-ray emission generated using the GALPROP code. The models are fitted to cosmic-ray data and incorporate astrophysical input for the distribution of cosmic-ray sources, interstellar gas and r…
Recent direct measurements of Galactic cosmic ray spectra by balloon/space-borne detectors reveal spectral hardenings of all major nucleus species at rigidities of a few hundred GV. The all-sky diffuse gamma-ray emissions measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope also show spatial variations of the intensities and spectral indices of cosmic rays. These new observations challenge the traditional simple acceleration and/or propagation scenario of Galactic cosmic rays. In this work we propose a spatially-dependent diffusion scenario to explain all these phenomena. The diffusion coefficient is as…
The Picard code for the numerical solution of the Galactic cosmic ray propagation problem allows for high-resolution models that acknowledge the 3D structure of our Galaxy. Picard was used to determine diffuse gamma-ray emission of the Galaxy over the energy range from 100 MeV to 100 TeV. We discuss the impact of a cosmic-ray source distribution aligned with the Galactic spiral arms for a range of such spiral-arm models. As expected, the impact on the gamma-ray emission is most distinct in the inverse-Compton channel, where imprints of the spiral arms are visible and yield predictions that are…