Rigorous Theory for Secondary Cosmic-Ray Ionization

Journal
Date Issued
2021
Author(s)
Ivlev, Alexei V.
•
Silsbee, Kedron
•
•
DOI
Abstract
The energy spectrum of electrons produced in molecular gas by interstellar cosmic rays (CRs) is rigorously calculated as a function of gas column density N traversed by the CRs. This allows us to accurately compute the local value of the secondary ionization rate of molecular hydrogen, ${\zeta }_{\sec }(N)$ , as a function of the local primary ionization rate, ζp(N). The ratio ${\zeta }_{\sec }/{\zeta }_{p}$ increases monotonically with N, and can considerably exceed the value of ≈0.67 commonly adopted in the literature. For sufficiently soft interstellar spectra, the dependence ${\zeta }_{\sec }/{\zeta }_{p}$ versus N is practically insensitive to their particular shape and thus is a general characteristic of the secondary CR ionization in dense gas.
Volume
909
Issue
2
Start page
107
Uri
Url
Issn Identifier
0004-637X
Ads BibCode
2021ApJ...909..107I
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open.access
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