New local interstellar spectra for protons, helium and carbon derived from PAMELA and Voyager 1 observations

With the cosmic ray observations made by the Voyager 1 spacecraft outside the dominant modulating influence of the heliosphere, the comparison of computed galactic spectra with experimental data at lower energies is finally possible. Spectra for specifically protons, helium and carbon nuclei, comput...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astrophysics and space science 2016-02, Vol.361 (2), p.1-8, Article 48
Main Authors: Bisschoff, D., Potgieter, M. S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrobiology
Astronomical models
Astronomy
Astrophysics
Astrophysics and Astroparticles
Carbon
Computation
Cosmic rays
Cosmology
Detectors
Diffusion
Helium
Interstellar
Observations and Techniques
Original Article
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Rigidity
Space Exploration and Astronautics
Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics
Spacecraft
Spectra
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Summary:With the cosmic ray observations made by the Voyager 1 spacecraft outside the dominant modulating influence of the heliosphere, the comparison of computed galactic spectra with experimental data at lower energies is finally possible. Spectra for specifically protons, helium and carbon nuclei, computed by galactic propagation models, can now be compared with observations at low energies from Voyager 1 and at high energies from the PAMELA space detector at Earth. We set out to reproduce the Voyager 1 observations in the energy range of 6 MeV/nuc to 60 MeV/nuc, and the PAMELA spectrum above 50 GeV/nuc, using the GALPROP code, similarly to our previous study for Voyager 1 electrons. By varying the galactic diffusion parameters in the GALPROP plain diffusion model, specifically the rigidity dependence of spatial diffusion, and then including reacceleration, we compute spectra simultaneously for galactic protons, helium and carbon. We present new local interstellar spectra, with expressions for the energy range of 3 MeV/nuc to 100 GeV/nuc, which should be of value for solar modulation modeling.
ISSN:0004-640X
1572-946X
DOI:10.1007/s10509-015-2633-8