Abstract The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass for the International Space Station (ISS-CREAM) experiment successfully recorded data for 539 days from 2017 August to 2019 February. We report the energy ...spectrum of cosmic-ray protons from the ISS-CREAM experiment at energies from 1.60 × 10 3 to 6.55 × 10 5 GeV. The measured spectrum deviates from a single power law. A smoothly broken power-law fit to the data, including statistical and systematic uncertainties, shows the spectral index change at 9.0 × 10 3 GeV from 2.57 ± 0.03 to 2.82 ± 0.02 with a significance of greater than 3 σ . This bump-like structure is consistent with a spectral softening recently reported by the balloon-borne CREAM, DAMPE, and NUCLEON, but ISS-CREAM extends measurements to higher energies.
Abstract Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are atomic nuclei from space with vastly higher energies than any other particles ever observed. Their origin and chemical composition remain a mystery. ...As we show here, the large and intermediate angular scale anisotropies observed by the Pierre Auger Observatory are a powerful tool for understanding the origin of UHECRs. Without specifying any particular production mechanism but only postulating that the source distribution follows the matter distribution of the local universe, a good accounting of the magnitude, direction, and energy dependence of the dipole anisotropy at energies above 8 × 10 18 eV is obtained after taking into account the impact of energy losses during propagation (the “GZK horizon”), diffusion in the extragalactic magnetic field, and deflections in the Galactic magnetic field (GMF). This is a major step toward the long-standing hope of using UHECR anisotropies to constrain UHECR composition and magnetic fields. The observed dipole anisotropy is incompatible with a pure proton composition in this scenario. With a more accurate treatment of energy losses, it should be possible to further constrain the cosmic-ray composition and properties of the extragalactic magnetic field, self-consistently improve the GMF model, and potentially expose individual UHECR sources.
We report the detection of GeV γ-ray emission from the very-high-energy γ-ray source VER J2227+608 associated with the "tail" region of supernova remnant (SNR) G106.3+2.7. The GeV γ-ray emission is ...extended and spatially coincident with molecular clouds traced by CO emission. The broadband GeV to TeV emission of VER J2227+608 can be well fitted by a single power-law function with an index of 1.90 0.04, without obvious indication of spectral cutoff toward high energies. The pure leptonic model for the γ-ray emission can be marginally ruled out by the X-ray and TeV data. In the hadronic model, the low energy content of CRs and the hard γ-ray spectrum, in combination with the center bright source structure, suggest that VER J2227+608 may be powered by the Pulsar wind nebula instead of shocks of the SNR. And the cutoff energy of the proton distribution needs to be higher than ∼400 TeV, which makes it an attractive PeVatron candidate. Future observations by the upcoming Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory and the Cherenkov Telescope Array in the north could distinguish these models and constrain the maximum energy of cosmic rays in SNRs.
Abstract As the fundamental physical process with many astrophysical implications, the diffusion of cosmic rays (CRs) is determined by their interaction with magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. We ...consider the magnetic mirroring effect arising from MHD turbulence on the diffusion of CRs. Due to the intrinsic superdiffusion of turbulent magnetic fields, CRs with large pitch angles that undergo mirror reflection, i.e., bouncing CRs, are not trapped between magnetic mirrors, but move diffusively along the turbulent magnetic field, leading to a new type of parallel diffusion, i.e., mirror diffusion. This mirror diffusion is in general slower than the diffusion of nonbouncing CRs with small pitch angles that undergo gyroresonant scattering. The critical pitch angle at the balance between magnetic mirroring and pitch-angle scattering is important for determining the diffusion coefficients of both bouncing and nonbouncing CRs and their scalings with the CR energy. We find nonuniversal energy scalings of diffusion coefficients, depending on the properties of MHD turbulence.
A precision measurement of the nitrogen flux with rigidity (momentum per unit charge) from 2.2 GV to 3.3 TV based on 2.2×10^{6} events is presented. The detailed rigidity dependence of the nitrogen ...flux spectral index is presented for the first time. The spectral index rapidly hardens at high rigidities and becomes identical to the spectral indices of primary He, C, and O cosmic rays above ∼700 GV. We observed that the nitrogen flux Φ_{N} can be presented as the sum of its primary component Φ_{N}^{P} and secondary component Φ_{N}^{S}, Φ_{N}=Φ_{N}^{P}+Φ_{N}^{S}, and we found Φ_{N} is well described by the weighted sum of the oxygen flux Φ_{O} (primary cosmic rays) and the boron flux Φ_{B} (secondary cosmic rays), with Φ_{N}^{P}=(0.090±0.002)×Φ_{O} and Φ_{N}^{S}=(0.62±0.02)×Φ_{B} over the entire rigidity range. This corresponds to a change of the contribution of the secondary cosmic ray component in the nitrogen flux from 70% at a few GV to <30% above 1 TV.
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