1204.4492 (N. Tomassetti)

Origin of the Cosmic Ray Spectral Hardening    [PDF]

N. Tomassetti

Recent data from ATIC, CREAM and PAMELA indicate that the cosmic ray energy spectra of protons and nuclei exhibit a remarkable hardening at energies above 100 GeV per nucleon. We propose that the hardening is an interstellar propagation effect that originates from a spatial change of the cosmic ray transport properties in different regions of the Galaxy. The key hypothesis is that the diffusion coefficient is not separable into energy and space variables as usually assumed. Under this scenario, we can reproduce well the observational data. Our model has several implications for the cosmic ray acceleration/propagation physics and can be tested by ongoing experiments such as AMS or Fermi/LAT.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4492