Hadronic interactions of primary cosmic rays with the FLUKA code

TL;DR

This paper uses the FLUKA simulation code to model secondary particle production from cosmic ray interactions with interstellar medium nuclei, aiding understanding of cosmic ray propagation.

Contribution

It introduces the use of FLUKA for detailed simulation of hadronic interactions of cosmic rays with interstellar matter, providing accurate secondary particle yields.

Findings

FLUKA accurately models secondary particle energy distributions.

Simulation results support cosmic ray propagation studies.

Application to galactic secondary production demonstrated.

Abstract

The measured fluxes of secondary particles produced by the interactions of cosmic rays with the astronomical environment represent a powerful tool to infer some properties of primary cosmic rays. In this work we investigate the production of secondary particles in inelastic hadronic interactions between several cosmic rays species of projectiles and different target nuclei of the interstellar medium. The yields of secondary particles have been calculated with the FLUKA simulation package, that provides with very good accuracy the energy distributions of secondary products in a large energy range. An application to the propagation and production of secondaries in the Galaxy is presented.