Physics
Scientific paper
Jul 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003icrc....4.1845g&link_type=abstract
Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan. Under the auspices of the I
Physics
Scientific paper
Conditions causing the `kink' in the proton spectrum in the energy range ˜ 1 TeV are considered. The possible approaches to experimental verification of the existence of the discussed process of GCR proton acceleration are analyzed. Even a brief glance on the spectra of protons and nuclei reveals a striking discrepancy between them: the spectrum of nuclei is purely power-law in a broad range of energies, and the proton spectrum, though power-law has a `kink' in the region around 1 TeV [1]. This discrepancy can not be achieved in the process of particle propagation in the Galaxy. Since in this process particles with equal rigidity are sub ject to equal disturbance despite their charge and mass. Therefore, the changes in the spectra, if they were caused by propagation processes would be equally pronounced for protons and nuclei. In other words, the observed discrepancy is acquired in the sources. Therefore, protons and nuclei have different sources. Here it should be noted, that sources of nuclei produce particles with a purely power-law spectrum and proton sources produce particles with a `knee' in the spectrum. A specific feature of the `knee' in the proton spectrum is that the energy range in which the change of βp by 0.5 - 0.6 occurs is very narrow. This circumstance indicates a certain universality of the process of the `knee' formation, which weakly depends on the concrete features of the source. We assume, that the main reason for the discrepancy in the spectra of protons and nuclei lies not in the sources, but in the particles themselves. There is one qualitative discrepancy between these two types of particles: protons in the process of acceleration and exit from the source can undergo an unlimited number of inelastic collisions and will still remain nucleons. Whereas nuclei are to o `fragile' formations: after several inelastic collisions they disintegrate into nucleons and no longer exist as nuclei. This discrepancy leads to the fact that protons can be accelerated in a sufficiently dense medium and travel significant thicknesses of material ˜ 102 - 103 g · cm-2 . Where as nuclei can be accelerated only in lowdensity medium, i.e. in the conditions of a strongly expanded supernova shell. The possibility of particle acceleration to high energies at the initial stage of the supernova blast is considered in [2]. It was shown in this paper, that acceleration
Grigorov Naum L.
Tolstaya Ekaterina D.
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