On the Observation of the Cosmic Ray Anisotropy below 10$^{15}$ eV

TL;DR

This paper reviews the detection of anisotropies in cosmic ray arrival directions below 10^15 eV, highlighting recent observations of large and medium scale anisotropies and discussing the challenges in explaining these phenomena within current models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of observed cosmic ray anisotropies below 10^15 eV and discusses the lack of existing theories to explain these features.

Findings

Detection of large-scale anisotropy with 10^-4 to 10^-3 amplitude

Identification of two broad regions: tail-in excess and loss cone

Recent reports of medium-scale anisotropy by IceCube

Abstract

The measurement of the anisotropy in the arrival direction of cosmic rays is complementary to the study of their energy spectrum and chemical composition to understand their origin and propagation. It is also a tool to probe the structure of the magnetic fields through which cosmic rays travel. As cosmic rays are mostly charged nuclei, their trajectories are deflected by the action of galactic magnetic field they propagate through before reaching the Earth atmosphere, so that their detection carries directional information only up to distances as large as their gyro-radius. If cosmic rays below $10^{15}{\rm\,eV}$ are considered and the local galactic magnetic field ($\sim3{\rm\,\mu G}$) is accounted for, gyro-radii are so short that isotropy is expected. At most, a weak di-polar distribution may exist, reflecting the contribution of the closest CR sources. However, a number of experiments observed an energy-dependent \emph{"large scale"} anisotropy in the sidereal time frame with an amplitude of about 10$^{-4}$ - 10$^{-3}$, revealing the existence of two distinct broad regions: an excess distributed around 40$^{\circ}$ to 90$^{\circ}$ in Right Ascension (commonly referred to as "tail.in" excess) and a deficit (the "loss cone") around 150$^{\circ}$ to 240$^{\circ}$ in Right Ascension. In recent years the Milagro and ARGO-YBJ collaborations reported the of a "medium" scale anisotropy inside the tail-in region. The observation of such small features has been recently claimed by the IceCube experiment also in the Southern hemisphere. So far, no theory of cosmic rays in the Galaxy exists which is able to explain the origin of these different anisotropies leaving the standard model of cosmic rays and that of the galactic magnetic field unchanged at the same time.