Propagation of cosmic rays into diffuse clouds

TL;DR

This paper investigates how low-energy cosmic rays penetrate diffuse clouds, revealing that their flux is significantly suppressed below 10-100 MeV due to self-generated Alfvén waves and energy losses, using a comprehensive kinetic theory approach.

Contribution

It introduces a full kinetic theory model coupling cosmic rays and Alfvén waves, including damping and energy losses, to accurately describe cosmic ray penetration into diffuse clouds.

Findings

CR flux is suppressed below 10-100 MeV in diffuse clouds

High-energy CR spectrum remains unaffected by cloud entry

Self-excited Alfvén waves increase CR confinement near cloud edges

Abstract

We study the capability of low-energy cosmic rays (CR) to penetrate into diffuse clouds when they move from the hot ionized plasma to a cool cloud embedded in that plasma. The spectrum of CR inside a cloud can be remarkably different from the the one present in the hot interstellar medium because when CRs pass through a dense cloud of matter, they suffer energy losses due to ionization and nuclear interactions. Hence there is a net flux of CRs towards the cloud that can excite Alfv\'en waves. In turn, self-excited Alfv\'en waves enhances the diffusion of CRs near the edge of the cloud, forcing CRs to spend more time in this layer and increasing the amount of energy losses. The final effect is that the flux of CR entering into the cloud is strongly suppressed below an energy threshold whose value depends on ambient parameters. For the first time we use the full kinetic theory to describe this problem, coupling CRs and Alfv\'en waves through the streaming instability, and including the damping of the waves due to ion-neutral friction and the CR energy losses due to ionization and pion production. Differently from previous approaches, this method allow us to describe the full CR spectrum and the magnetic turbulence spectrum in the transition region between hot interstellar medium and the cloud. For the typical size and density of diffuse clouds in the Galaxy, we find that the flux of particles entering the cloud is strongly reduced below E~10-100 MeV, while for larger energies the CR spectrum remain unaltered.