1. Chemistry of ion injection in supernova remnant shocks: hybrid simulations in the light of He/C/O data from AMS-02
- Author
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T. V. Liseykina, Adrian Hanusch, and Mikhail Malkov
- Subjects
History ,Ion injection ,Astrophysics ,Supernova remnant ,Computer Science Applications ,Education - Abstract
The high precision spectrometry of galactic cosmic rays (CR), e.g. PAMELA experiment [1], accurately determined an approximately 0.1 difference between the rigidity spectral indices of protons and He ions. Similar deviations have been indicated earlier by other experiments [2] confirmed by the recent high-fidelity AMS-02 measurements [3]. These findings widen the window into a complicated selection process whereby collisionless shocks, such as supernova remnant (SNR) blast waves, extract different chemical elements from an interstellar matter mix. The similarity of He/p, C/p, and O/p rigidity spectra demonstrated by AMS-02 has provided new evidence that injection is a mass-to-charge (A/Z) dependent process. We investigate the particle injection into the diffusive shock acceleration using one- and two-dimensional self-consistent hybrid simulations. Our 1D simulations prove that an SNR shock can modify the chemical composition of accelerated CRs by preferentially extracting them from a homogeneous background plasma without additional, largely untestable assumptions. Our results confirm the earlier theoretical predictions of how the efficiency of injection depends on the shock Mach number MA . They show that selection rate of different ion species increases with A/Z, saturates, and peaks as a function of MA . The 2D simulations also evidence a deviation from the linear selection rate vs A/Z trend, pointing towards a saturation for higher A/Z. The integrated SNR rigidity spectrum for proton-to-helium flux ratio, obtained by the convolution of the time-dependent injection rates of protons and He ions with a decreasing shock strength over the active lives of SNRs, compares well with the AMS-02 and PAMELA data. The numerical results [4] correctly predict the decrease in p/He flux ratio with increasing rigidity at exactly the rate measured in the experiments for ℜ > 10 GV. Only at lower rigidities, ℜ < 10 GV, the difference between the data and our predictions becomes noticeable. Whether this deviation comes from the propagation through the interstellar medium or solar modulation, remains unclear. Except for this uncertainty, the suggested mechanism for A/Z-dependence of the injection fully explains the measured p/He ratio.
- Published
- 2019
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