Abstract
Motivated by the recent high-precision measurements of the cosmic-ray energy spectrum and composition by several new-generation experiments, we have conducted a detailed study to understand the observed properties of cosmic rays up to -1018 eV. The study involves building a propagation model for cosmic rays originating from supernova explosions in the interstellar medium. Although these cosmic rays can satisfactorily explain the observed spectra of different elements at low energies provided by balloon and satellite borne experiments, we found that they cannot account for the cosmic rays above -1016 eV observed by air shower experiments. An additional component of Galactic cosmic rays is required in order to explain the observed cosmic rays beyond this energy up to -1018 eV. Possible scenarios for this additional component, and comparison with the observed all-particle spectrum and composition are presented.
| Original language | British English |
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| Article number | 526 |
| Journal | Proceedings of Science |
| Volume | 30-July-2015 |
| State | Published - 2015 |
| Event | 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC 2015 - The Hague, Netherlands Duration: 30 Jul 2015 → 6 Aug 2015 |