Magnetic reconnection as the cause of cosmic ray excess from the heliospheric tail
Aug, 2010Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
The observation of a broad excess of sub-TeV cosmic rays compatible with the direction of the heliospheric tail (Nagashima et al. 1998) and the discovery of two significant localized excess regions of multi-TeV cosmic rays by the MILAGRO collaboration (Abdo et al. 2008), also from the same region of the sky, have raised questions on their origin. In particular, the coincidence of the most significant localized region with the direction of the heliospheric tail and the small angular scale of the observed anisotropy (~ 10deg) is suggestive a local origin and of a possible connection to the low energy broad excess. Cosmic ray acceleration from magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail is proposed as a possible source of the energetic particles.Note:
- 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
- magnetic fields
- MHD
- solar wind
- acceleration of particles
- cosmic rays
- cosmic radiation: acceleration
- cosmic radiation: anisotropy
- cosmic radiation: particle source
- magnetic field
- effect: solar
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