Diffusion of PeV Cosmic Rays in the Turbulent and Multiphase Interstellar Medium

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution 3D MHD simulations to explore how PeV cosmic rays diffuse through the complex, multiphase interstellar medium, revealing the roles of phase boundaries and magnetic fluctuations in their transport.

Contribution

It provides a self-consistent analysis of cosmic ray diffusion in a realistic multiphase ISM, highlighting the effects of thermal phase transitions and magnetic field gradients.

Findings

Magnetic field gradients at phase boundaries create localized scattering sites.

Global diffusion coefficients reach ~10^{30} cm^2/s at 1.5 PeV, with perpendicular diffusion exceeding isothermal models.

Super-Alfvénic cold neutral medium confines cosmic rays, reducing local diffusion.

Abstract

Galactic cosmic rays (CRs) are a fundamental non-thermal component of the interstellar medium (ISM). Understanding the transport of super-high-energy particles is essential for interpreting observations of Galactic PeVatrons. Classical diffusion models assuming a homogeneous and isothermal medium oversimplify the multiphase ISM. We utilize high-resolution 3D MHD simulations to self-consistently generate a multiphase ISM, comprising the warm (WNM), unstable (UNM), and cold neutral medium (CNM), and investigate 1.5-15 PeV particle transport using a test-particle approach. We find that thermal phase transitions induce steep magnetic field strength gradients at phase boundaries, creating localized magnetic fluctuations that act as efficient sites for adiabatic mirror reflections and non-adiabatic pitch-angle scattering, strongly enhancing cross-field transport at these interfaces. However, because phase boundaries occupy only a small volume fraction and particles spend most of their trajectory in the weakly scattering WNM and UNM, the global pitch-angle scattering coefficient in the multiphase ISM is smaller than in an equivalent isothermal medium. This locally strong scattering nevertheless drives both parallel and perpendicular spatial diffusion coefficients to $\sim10^{30} {\rm cm^2 s^{-1}$ at 1.5~PeV, with the perpendicular component exceeding its isothermal counterpart ($\sim 10^{28}{\rm cm^2 s^{-1}$) by two orders of magnitude. Using a phase--phase diffusion matrix decomposition, we show that global CR transport is governed by the volume-filling, trans-Alfv\'enic WNM and UNM, where particles stream along stochastically wandering field lines. Cross-phase displacement correlations are universally positive, indicating cooperative transport between thermal phases. In contrast, the super-Alfv\'enic CNM acts as an efficient confinement that substantially suppresses local diffusion.