Positron Excess from Cosmic Ray Interactions in Galactic Molecular Clouds

TL;DR

This study investigates whether secondary positron production in nearby Galactic Molecular Clouds can explain the rising positron flux observed by AMS-02, using updated GMC data and cosmic ray propagation modeling.

Contribution

The paper introduces a comprehensive model including reaccelerated cosmic rays in GMCs to explain the positron excess, utilizing recent GMC surveys and the DRAGON code.

Findings

Positron spectrum explained by the model in 1-1000 GeV range.

Reaccelerated cosmic rays in GMCs significantly contribute to positron flux.

Model aligns well with AMS-02 and Fermi-LAT observations.

Abstract

The recently observed data by AMS-02 clearly confirms that the positron flux rises with energy and shows a peak near a few hundred GeV. This rising positron flux cannot be explained by interactions of cosmic rays with interstellar hydrogen gas. In this paper, our goal is to study whether secondary production due to cosmic ray interactions in nearby Galactic Molecular Clouds (GMCs) can contribute significantly to the observed positron spectrum on Earth. Due to the progress in multi-wavelength astronomy, many new GMCs have been discovered in our Galaxy recently. Using large scale CO survey, 1064 GMCs were detected in the Galaxy, which reside in the Galactic plane. Very recent survey implemented the optical/IR dust extinction measurements, to trace 567 GMCs within 4 kpc of Earth, also residing in the Galactic plane. We use the updated list of GMCs reported in recent papers, which are distributed in the Galactic plane, to find the secondary positrons produced in them in interactions of cosmic rays with molecular hydrogen. Moreover, by analysing the \textit{Fermi}-LAT data, new GMCs have been discovered near the Galactic plane. We also include some of these GMCs closest to the Earth where cosmic ray interactions are producing secondaries. It has been speculated earlier that cosmic rays may be reaccelerated in some GMCs. We select 7 GMCs out of 567 GMCs recently reported, within 4 kpc of Earth, where reacceleration due to magnetized turbulence is assumed. We include a hardened component of secondary positrons, produced from interaction of reaccelerated CRs in those 7 GMCs. We use publicly available code \textbf{DRAGON} for our simulation setup to study CR propagation in the Galaxy and show that the observed positron spectrum can be well explained in the energy range of 1 to 1000 GeV by our self consistent model.