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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2011

CAN ULTRAHIGH-ENERGY COSMIC RAYS COME FROM GAMMA-RAY BURSTS? COSMIC RAYS BELOW THE ANKLE AND GALACTIC GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

The maximum cosmic-ray energy achievable by acceleration by a relativistic blast wave is derived. It is shown that forward shocks from long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the interstellar medium accelerate protons to large enough energies, and have a sufficient energy budget, to produce the Galactic cosmic-ray component just below the ankle at 4 x 10{sup 18} eV, as per an earlier suggestion. It is further argued that, were extragalactic long GRBs responsible for the component above the ankle as well, the occasional Galactic GRB within the solar circle would contribute more than the observational limits on the outward flux from the solar circle, unless an avoidance scenario, such as intermittency and/or beaming, allows the present-day local flux to be less than 10{sup -3} of the average. Difficulties with these avoidance scenarios are noted.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

IONIZATION IN ATMOSPHERES OF BROWN DWARFS AND EXTRASOLAR PLANETS. IV. THE EFFECT OF COSMIC RAYS

Cosmic rays provide an important source for free electrons in Earth's atmosphere and also in dense interstellar regions where they produce a prevailing background ionization. We utilize a Monte Carlo cosmic ray transport model for particle energies of 10{sup 6} eV 10{sup -8} when p{sub gas} < 10{sup -8} bar, suggesting that this part of the atmosphere may behave as a weakly ionized plasma. Although cosmic rays enhance the degree of ionization by over three orders of magnitude in the upper atmosphere, the effect is not likely to be significant enough for sustained coupling of the magnetic field to the gas.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Gamma-Ray and Cosmic Ray Muon Modalities for Cargo Inspection

Screening and inspection of cargo containers are two essential methods to nondestructively examine the contents of shipment. These methods enable the detection of illicit transportation of unauthorized materials such as nuclear and radioactive materials, explosives, drugs, and so on, typically at borders or secure facilities. Although high-energy X-ray transmission is a standard system and is widely used for cargo inspection, the inherent challenges of high false-positive rates and high attenuation factors necessitate the development of complementary techniques that can increase the detection efficiency and accuracy in large and dense materials. Gamma-rays, which possess higher penetration characteristics because of their high energy, offer an alternative nonintrusive modality for cargo scanning. They represent a promising inspection method when compared to X-rays for three reasons: (1) improved ability to detect nuclear and radioactive materials, (2) higher inspection throughput rates, and (3) lower false-positive rates. Currently, there are two main gamma-ray inspection techniques, active and passive interrogation. Active interrogation can be further grouped into (1) gamma-ray transmission imaging and (2) neutron-induced gamma-ray emission detection. Gamma-ray transmission imaging utilizes differences in material densities for mapping the shipment contents and detecting anomalies. It is analogous to the X-ray transmission method; however, the high-energy photons make it more difficult to shield against, which enables more efficient performance in large and dense material inspection. Neutron-induced gamma-ray emission inspection is designed for the detection of nuclear and radioactive material because those materials emit characteristic gamma-rays when they are activated by neutron absorption. On the other hand, passive interrogation techniques rely on high-efficiency detectors to detect radiation emitted from hidden special nuclear or other radioactive materials. Similar to passive interrogation, cosmic ray muon monitoring and imaging are relatively new techniques that do not require external radioactive sources. These techniques have received attention as a potential next-generation radiographic probe to identify illicit transportation of nuclear and radioactive materials in cargo containers. Cosmic ray muons have unique features, (1) much higher energies than X-rays or gamma-rays (on the order of 10−1—104 GeV), (2) enhanced penetration capability, and (3) natural occurrence, thereby eliminating the need for induced radiation sources. These features enable cosmic ray muons to be utilized for detection of special nuclear materials in high-background-noise environments. By analyzing incoming and outgoing muon trajectories, scattering angles, and energies, it has been shown that it would be possible to locate hidden and well-shielded materials in cargo containers via three-dimensional muon tomography images or signal analysis. Gamma-rays, cosmic ray muons, and other nonintrusive cargo inspection modalities are complementary to each other, allowing them to address various cargo inspection conditions (i.e., scanning time, cost, radiation exposure level, and types of target materials). This chapter presents a detailed review of the theoretical fundamentals and technical principles behind the current gamma-ray and cosmic ray muon modalities for cargo inspection. Additionally, critical assessments and suggestions for the future directions to advance the use of gamma and muon modalities are discussed.

Bae, Junghyun↗
DOE OSTI2012

FERMI-LAT OBSERVATIONS OF THE DIFFUSE {gamma}-RAY EMISSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR COSMIC RAYS AND THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM

The {gamma}-ray sky >100 MeV is dominated by the diffuse emissions from interactions of cosmic rays with the interstellar gas and radiation fields of the Milky Way. Observations of these diffuse emissions provide a tool to study cosmic-ray origin and propagation, and the interstellar medium. We present measurements from the first 21 months of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) mission and compare with models of the diffuse {gamma}-ray emission generated using the GALPROP code. The models are fitted to cosmic-ray data and incorporate astrophysical input for the distribution of cosmic-ray sources, interstellar gas, and radiation fields. To assess uncertainties associated with the astrophysical input, a grid of models is created by varying within observational limits the distribution of cosmic-ray sources, the size of the cosmic-ray confinement volume (halo), and the distribution of interstellar gas. An all-sky maximum-likelihood fit is used to determine the X{sub CO} factor, the ratio between integrated CO-line intensity and H{sub 2} column density, the fluxes and spectra of the {gamma}-ray point sources from the first Fermi-LAT catalog, and the intensity and spectrum of the isotropic background including residual cosmic rays that were misclassified as {gamma}-rays, all of which have some dependency on the assumed diffuse emission model. The models are compared on the basis of their maximum-likelihood ratios as well as spectra, longitude, and latitude profiles. We also provide residual maps for the data following subtraction of the diffuse emission models. The models are consistent with the data at high and intermediate latitudes but underpredict the data in the inner Galaxy for energies above a few GeV. Possible explanations for this discrepancy are discussed, including the contribution by undetected point-source populations and spectral variations of cosmic rays throughout the Galaxy. In the outer Galaxy, we find that the data prefer models with a flatter distribution of cosmic-ray sources, a larger cosmic-ray halo, or greater gas density than is usually assumed. Our results in the outer Galaxy are consistent with other Fermi-LAT studies of this region that used different analysis methods than employed in this paper.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Explaining TeV cosmic-ray anisotropies with non-diffusive cosmic-ray propagation

Constraining the behavior of cosmic ray data observed at Earth requires a precise understanding of how the cosmic rays propagate in the interstellar medium. The interstellar medium is not homogeneous; although turbulent magnetic fields dominate over large scales, small coherent regions of magnetic field exist on scales relevant to particle propagation in the nearby Galaxy. Guided propagation through a coherent field is significantly different from random particle diffusion and could be the explanation of spatial anisotropies in the observed cosmic rays. We present a Monte Carlo code to propagate cosmic particle through realistic magnetic field structures. We discuss the details of the model as well as some preliminary studies which indicate that coherent magnetic structures are important effects in local cosmic-ray propagation, increasing the flux of cosmic rays by over two orders of magnitude at anisotropic locations on the sky. Furthermore, the features induced by coherent magnetic structure could be the cause of the observed TeV cosmic-ray anisotropy.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Superdiffusion of cosmic rays: Implications for cosmic ray acceleration

Diffusion of cosmic rays (CRs) is the key process for understanding their propagation and acceleration. We employ the description of spatial separation of magnetic field lines in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in Lazarian and Vishniac to quantify the divergence of the magnetic field on scales less than the injection scale of turbulence and show that this divergence induces superdiffusion of CR in the direction perpendicular to the mean magnetic field. The perpendicular displacement squared increases, not as the distance x along the magnetic field, which is the case for a regular diffusion, but as the x {sup 3} for freely streaming CRs. The dependence changes to x {sup 3/2} for the CRs propagating diffusively along the magnetic field. In the latter case, we show that it is important to distinguish the perpendicular displacement with respect to the mean field and to the local magnetic field. We consider how superdiffusion changes the acceleration of CRs in shocks and show how it decreases efficiency of the CRs acceleration in perpendicular shocks. We also demonstrate that in the case when the small-scale magnetic field is generated in the pre-shock region, an efficient acceleration can take place for the CRs streaming without collisions along the magnetic loops.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

CONSTRAINING THE X-RAY AND COSMIC-RAY IONIZATION CHEMISTRY OF THE TW Hya PROTOPLANETARY DISK: EVIDENCE FOR A SUB-INTERSTELLAR COSMIC-RAY RATE

We present an observational and theoretical study of the primary ionizing agents (cosmic rays (CRs) and X-rays) in the TW Hya protoplanetary disk. We use a set of resolved and unresolved observations of molecular ions and other molecular species, encompassing 11 lines total, in concert with a grid of disk chemistry models. The molecular ion constraints comprise new data from the Submillimeter Array on HCO{sup +}, acquired at unprecedented spatial resolution, and data from the literature, including ALMA observations of N{sub 2}H{sup +}. We vary the model incident CR flux and stellar X-ray spectra and find that TW Hya's HCO{sup +} and N{sub 2}H{sup +} emission are best-fit by a moderately hard X-ray spectra, as would be expected during the ''flaring'' state of the star, and a low CR ionization rate, ζ{sub CR} ≲ 10{sup –19} s{sup –1}. This low CR rate is the first indication of the presence of CR exclusion by winds and/or magnetic fields in an actively accreting T Tauri disk system. With this new constraint, our best-fit ionization structure predicts a low turbulence ''dead-zone'' extending from the inner edge of the disk out to 50-65 AU. This region coincides with an observed concentration of millimeter grains, and we propose that the inner region of TW Hya is a dust (and possibly planet) growth factory as predicted by previous theoretical work.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2010

THE RELATION BETWEEN POST-SHOCK TEMPERATURE, COSMIC-RAY PRESSURE, AND COSMIC-RAY ESCAPE FOR NON-RELATIVISTIC SHOCKS

Supernova remnants (SNRs) are thought to be the dominant source of Galactic cosmic rays. This requires that at least 5% of the available energy is transferred to cosmic rays, implying a high cosmic-ray pressure downstream of SNR shocks. Recently, it has been shown that the downstream temperature in some remnants is low compared to the measured shock velocities, implying that additional pressure supported by accelerated particles is present. Here we use a two-fluid thermodynamic approach to derive the relation between post-shock fractional cosmic-ray pressure and post-shock temperature, assuming no additional heating beyond adiabatic heating in the shock precursor and with all non-adiabatic heating occurring at the subshock. The derived relations show that a high fractional cosmic-ray pressure is only possible if a substantial fraction of the incoming energy flux escapes from the system. Recently, a shock velocity and a downstream proton temperature were measured for a shock in the SNR RCW 86. We apply the two-fluid solutions to these measurements and find that the downstream fractional cosmic-ray pressure is at least 50% with a cosmic-ray energy flux escape of at least 20%. In general, in order to have 5% of the supernova energy to go into accelerating cosmic rays, on average the post-shock cosmic-ray pressure needs to be 30% for an effective cosmic-ray adiabatic index of {gamma}{sub cr} = 4/3.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Calibration of large neutron detection arrays using cosmic rays

Cosmic muons are used to calibrate the position, light output and the relative timing offset of the Large Area Neutron Array (LANA). Each 2 × 2 m 2 LANA wall consists of twenty-five horizontal neutron detection bars. Each bar is 2 m long with a cross-section of 6.35 × 7.62 cm 2 Pyrex container filled with NE-213 organic scintillation liquid. The average position and time resolution of a bar is found to be about 8 cm and 500 ps FWHM, respectively. Furthermore, our method provides an accurate, fast and convenient calibration of LANA that can be applied to general scintillation arrays without the use of radioactive sources or beams.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Heliospheric influence on the anisotropy of TeV cosmic rays

This paper provides a theory of using Liouville's theorem to map the anisotropy of TeV cosmic rays seen at Earth using the particle distribution function in the local interstellar medium (LISM). The ultimate source of cosmic ray anisotropy is the energy, pitch angle, and spatial dependence of the cosmic ray distribution function in the LISM. Because young nearby cosmic ray sources can make a special contribution to the cosmic ray anisotropy, the anisotropy depends on the source age, distance and magnetic connection, and particle diffusion of these cosmic rays, all of which make the anisotropy sensitive to the particle energy. When mapped through the magnetic and electric field of a magnetohydrodynamic model heliosphere, the large-scale dipolar and bidirectional interstellar anisotropy patterns become distorted if they are seen from Earth, resulting in many small structures in the observations. Best fits to cosmic ray anisotropy measurements have allowed us to estimate the particle density gradient and pitch angle anisotropies in the LISM. It is found that the heliotail, hydrogen deflection plane, and the plane perpendicular to the LISM magnetic field play a special role in distorting cosmic ray anisotropy. These features can lead to an accurate determination of the LISM magnetic field direction and polarity. The effects of solar cycle variation, the Sun's coronal magnetic field, and turbulence in the LISM and heliospheric magnetic fields are minor but clearly visible at a level roughly equal to a fraction of the overall anisotropy amplitude. The heliospheric influence becomes stronger at lower energies. Below 1 TeV, the anisotropy is dominated by small-scale patterns produced by disturbances in the heliosphere.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Historical Building Stability Monitoring by Means of a Cosmic Ray Tracking System

Cosmic ray radiation is mostly composed, at sea level, by high energy muons, which are highly penetrating particles capable of crossing kilometers of rock. The ubiquitous and steady presence at the Earth's surface and the high penetration capability have motivated the use of cosmic ray radiation also in fields beyond particle physics, from geology, archaeology, speleology to industrial applications and homeland security. In particular, in recent years, the novel technique of muon tomography has been proposed, with the aim of performing non invasive inspection of large non accessible volumes, material atomic number Z and density discrimination, and three dimension image reconstruction of the inspected volume. In the present paper, after a short recall of the physical principles and mathematical formalism on which muon tomography is based, a number of examples of application of the novel technique in industry and homeland security issues is given. Moreover, a new application of cosmic rays detection techniques in the field of civil engineering is proposed. The aim is the monitoring of the stability of large structures, in particular the static monitoring of historical buildings, where conservation constraints are more severe and the time evolution of the deformation phenomena under study may be of the order of months or years. The new technique may be seen, in some way, as the reverse problem of muon tomography. As a significant case study, the monitoring of the wooden vaulted roof of the Palazzo della Loggia in the town of Brescia, in Italy, has been considered. The feasibility as well as the performances and limitations of a monitoring system based on cosmic ray tracking have been studied by Monte Carlo simulation and discussed in comparison with more traditional monitoring systems. (authors)

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Study of cosmic ray events with high muon multiplicity using the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

ALICE is one of four large experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, specially designed to study particle production in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Located 52 meters underground with 28 meters of overburden rock, it has also been used to detect muons produced by cosmic ray interactions in the upper atmosphere. Here, we present the multiplicity distribution of these atmospheric muons and its comparison with Monte Carlo simulations. Our analysis exploits the large size and excellent tracking capability of the ALICE Time Projection Chamber. A special emphasis is given to the study of high multiplicity events containing more than 100 reconstructed muons and corresponding to a muon areal density rho(mu) > 5.9 m(-2). Similar events have been studied in previous underground experiments such as ALEPH and DELPHI at LEP. While these experiments were able to reproduce the measured muon multiplicity distribution with Monte Carlo simulations at low and intermediate multiplicities, their simulations failed to describe the frequency of the highest multiplicity events. In this work we show that the high multiplicity events observed in ALICE stem from primary cosmic rays with energies above 10(16) eV and that the frequency of these events can be successfully described by assuming a heavy mass composition of primary cosmic rays in this energy range. Furthermore, the development of the resulting air showers was simulated using the latest version of QGSJET to model hadronic interactions. This observation places significant constraints on alternative, more exotic, production mechanisms for these events.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Cosmic Ray Anomalies from the MSSM?

The recent positron excess in cosmic rays (CR) observed by the PAMELA satellite may be a signal for dark matter (DM) annihilation. When these measurements are combined with those from FERMI on the total (e{sup +} + e{sup -}) ux and from PAMELA itself on the {anti p}p ratio, these and other results are difficult to reconcile with traditional models of DM, including the conventional minimal Supergravity (mSUGRA) version of Supersymmetry even if boosts as large as 10{sup 3-4} are allowed. In this paper, we combine the results of a previously obtained scan over a more general 19-parameter subspace of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with a corresponding scan over astrophysical parameters that describe the propagation of CR. We then ascertain whether or not a good fit to this CR data can be obtained with relatively small boost factors while simultaneously satisfying the additional constraints arising from gamma ray data. We find that a specific subclass of MSSM models where the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle (LSP) is mostly pure bino and annihilates almost exclusively into {tau} pairs comes very close to satisfying these requirements. The lightest in this set of models is found to be relatively close in mass to the LSP and is in some cases the nLSP. These models lead to a significant improvement in the overall fit to the data by {approx}1 unit of {chi}{sup 2}/dof in comparison to the best fit without Supersymmetry while employing boosts in the range {approx}100-200. The implications of these models for future experiments are discussed.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

New Tests of Low-Scale Quantum Gravity with Cosmic-Ray Collisions

Cosmic ray collisions at high center of mass energy could enable graviton and black hole production as expected in theories of low-scale quantum gravity, such as extra-dimensions, many species, or some versions of string theory. Here we propose three novel phenomenological tests of these theories. We first consider the collision of cosmic rays with ambient protons, electrons and photons in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), finding that high-energy neutrino data from the blazar TXS 0506+056 places a constraint on the fundamental scale of gravity of $M_f \gtrsim 0.3$ TeV, and future high-energy neutrino data could raise this bound to $M_f \gtrsim 200$ TeV. We then point out that collisions of pairs of cosmic rays could occur at a sizable rate in AGN where the accelerated cosmic rays are not collimated, or on supermassive black hole binaries. This consideration could potentially let us test unprecedented large fundamental scales of $M_f \gtrsim 2$ PeV. We further compute the corresponding thermal neutrino emission arising from the Hawking evaporation of black holes produced in cosmic ray collisions, finding a spectrum that clearly differs from that expected in meson decays. Finally, we speculate with an scenario which would produce high-energy neutrino and gamma-ray emission from regions in the sky where no multi-wavelength counterparts would be expected, via graviton propagation from a different brane, which then decays in our Universe.

Ettengruber, Manuel [IPhT, Saclay]↗
DOE OSTI2013

A new method for imaging nuclear threats using cosmic ray muons

Muon tomography is a technique that uses cosmic ray muons to generate three-dimensional images of volumes using information contained in the Coulomb scattering of the muons. Advantages of this technique are the ability of cosmic rays to penetrate significant overburden and the absence of any additional dose delivered to subjects under study beyond the natural cosmic ray flux. Disadvantages include the relatively long exposure times and poor position resolution and complex algorithms needed for reconstruction. Furthermore, we demonstrate a new method for obtaining improved position resolution and statistical precision for objects with spherical symmetry.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2012

Cosmic rays, gamma rays and synchrotron radiation from the Galaxy

Galactic cosmic rays (CR), interstellar gamma-ray emission and synchrotron radiation are related topics. CR electrons propagate in the Galaxy and interact with the interstellar medium, producing inverse-Compton emission measured in gamma rays and synchrotron emission measured in radio. I present an overview of the latest results with Fermi/LAT on the gamma-ray diffuse emission induced by CR nuclei and electrons. Then I focus on the recent complementary studies of the synchrotron emission in the light of the latest gamma-ray results. Relevant observables include spectral indices and their variations, using surveys over a wide range of radio frequencies. This paper enphasizes the importance of using the parallel study of gamma rays and synchrotron radiation in order to constrain the low-energy interstellar CR electron spectrum, models of propagation of CRs, and magnetic fields.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Observation of small-scale anisotropy in the arrival direction distribution of TeV cosmic rays with HAWC

The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is sensitive to gamma rays and charged cosmic rays at TeV energies. The detector is still under construction, but data acquisition with the partially deployed detector started in 2013. An analysis of the cosmic-ray arrival direction distribution based on 4.9 × 10{sup 10} events recorded between 2013 June and 2014 February shows anisotropy at the 10{sup –4} level on angular scales of about 10°. The HAWC cosmic-ray sky map exhibits three regions of significantly enhanced cosmic-ray flux; two of these regions were first reported by the Milagro experiment. A third region coincides with an excess recently reported by the ARGO-YBJ experiment. An angular power spectrum analysis of the sky shows that all terms up to ℓ = 15 contribute significantly to the excesses.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Quantifying the interstellar medium and cosmic rays in the MBM 53, 54, and 55 molecular clouds and the pegasus loop using Fermi-LAT gamma-ray observations

A study of the interstellar medium (ISM) and cosmic rays (CRs) using Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data, in a region encompassing the nearby molecular clouds MBM 53, 54, and 55 and a far-infrared loop-like structure in Pegasus, is reported. By comparing the Planck dust thermal emission model with Fermi-LAT γ-ray data, it was found that neither the dust radiance (R) nor the dust opacity at 353 GHz (τ {sub 353}) was proportional to the total gas column density N(H{sub tot}) primarily because N(H{sub tot})/R and N(H{sub tot})/τ {sub 353} depend on the dust temperature (T {sub d}). The N(H{sub tot}) distribution was evaluated using γ-ray data by assuming the regions of high T {sub d} to be dominated by optically thin atomic hydrogen (H I) and by employing an empirical linear relation of N(H{sub tot})/R to T {sub d}. It was determined that the mass of the gas not traced by the 21 cm or 2.6 mm surveys is ∼25% of the mass of H I in the optically thin case and is larger than the mass of the molecular gas traced by carbon monoxide by a factor of up to 5. The measured γ-ray emissivity spectrum is consistent with a model based on CR spectra measured at the Earth and a nuclear enhancement factor of ≤1.5. It is, however, lower than local H I emissivities reported by previous Fermi-LAT studies employing different analysis methods and assumptions on ISM properties by 15%–20% in energies below a few GeV, even if we take account of the statistical and systematic uncertainties. The origin of the discrepancy is also discussed.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗