Cosmic rays in astrospheres

TL;DR

This paper models cosmic ray transport in large astrospheres, showing that such cavities can significantly modulate cosmic ray flux and create observable small-scale anisotropies.

Contribution

It introduces a hydrodynamic model of astrospheres combined with a stochastic transport model for cosmic rays, highlighting the impact of stellar wind cavities on cosmic ray modulation.

Findings

Large stellar wind cavities can act as sinks for galactic cosmic rays.

Cavities can cause small-scale cosmic ray anisotropies.

Cosmic ray spectra are modulated in astrospheric environments.

Abstract

Cosmic rays passing through large astrospheres can be efficiently cooled inside these "cavities" in the interstellar medium. Moreover, the energy spectra of these energetic particles are already modulated in front of the astrospherical bow shocks. We study the cosmic ray flux in and around lambda Cephei as an example for an astrosphere. The large-scale plasma flow is modeled hydrodynamically with radiative cooling. We studied the cosmic ray flux in a stellar wind cavity using a transport model based on stochastic differential equations. The required parameters, most importantly, the elements of the diffusion tensor, are based on the heliospheric parameters. The magnetic field required for the diffusion coefficients is calculated kinematically. We discuss the transport in an astrospheric scenario with varying parameters for the transport coefficients. We show that large stellar wind cavities can act as sinks for the galactic cosmic ray flux and thus can give rise to small-scale anisotropies in the direction to the observer. Small-scale cosmic ray anisotropies can naturally be explained by the modulation of cosmic ray spectra in huge stellar wind cavities.