Rigorous Theory for Secondary Cosmic-Ray Ionization

The energy spectrum of electrons produced in molecular gas by interstellar cosmic rays (CRs) is rigorously calculated as a function of gas column density N traversed by the CRs. This allows us to accurately compute the local value of the secondary ionization rate of molecular hydrogen, , as a functi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2021-03, Vol.909 (2), p.107
Main Authors: Ivlev, Alexei V., Silsbee, Kedron, Padovani, Marco, Galli, Daniele
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrophysics
Cosmic ray ionization
Cosmic ray showers
Cosmic rays
Energy spectra
Hydrogen
Interstellar chemistry
Interstellar gas
Ionization
Molecular gases
Secondary cosmic rays
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Summary:The energy spectrum of electrons produced in molecular gas by interstellar cosmic rays (CRs) is rigorously calculated as a function of gas column density N traversed by the CRs. This allows us to accurately compute the local value of the secondary ionization rate of molecular hydrogen, , as a function of the local primary ionization rate, ζ p ( N ). The ratio increases monotonically with N , and can considerably exceed the value of ≈0.67 commonly adopted in the literature. For sufficiently soft interstellar spectra, the dependence versus N is practically insensitive to their particular shape and thus is a general characteristic of the secondary CR ionization in dense gas.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/abdc27