A possible explanation of the knee of cosmic light component spectrum from 100 TeV to 3 PeV

TL;DR

This paper explains the knee in the cosmic light spectrum from 100 TeV to 3 PeV by modeling cosmic ray escape from supernova remnants, aligning with observed data and proposing a unified explanation for spectral features.

Contribution

It introduces a model of cosmic ray escape from SNRs that reproduces the observed spectrum and explains the spectral steepening at 700 TeV.

Findings

The model fits the ARGO-YBJ H+He spectrum with a steepening at 700 TeV.

Proton spectra observed by KASCADE can also be explained with higher acceleration efficiency.

The model provides a unified explanation for the knee in cosmic ray spectrum.

Abstract

The mixed Hydrogen and Helium (H + He) spectrum with a clear steepening at $\sim 700$ TeV has been detected by ARGO-YBJ experiments. In this paper, we demonstrate that the observed H + He spectrum can be well reproduced with the model of cosmic rays escaping from the supernova remnants (SNRs) in our Galaxy. In this model, particles are accelerated in a SNR through a non-linear diffusive shock acceleration mechanism and three components of high energy light nuclei escaped from the SNR are considered. It should be noted that the proton spectrum observed by KASCADE can be also explained by this model given a higher acceleration efficiency.