Speaker
Dr
Andrea Vittino
(TTK, RWTH Aachen)
Description
Electrons and positrons play a special role among cosmic ray (CR) species. Most strikingly, their strong energy losses in the Galactic magnetic and radiation fields severely limit their propagation distances. Therefore electrons and positrons offer invaluable insights into the local properties of CR acceleration and propagation. In this talk we present our model for their interstellar spectra over a wide energy range extending from the MeV to the TeV domain. We illustrate how the underlying parameters can be efficiently constrained by exploiting different experimental observations, including both direct observations of the spectra (at Earth and at the heliopause) and measurements of the diffuse synchrotron emission generated by CR leptons as they propagate through the magnetic field of the Galaxy. For the first time, we consider recent time-dependent observations at GeV energies by AMS-02 and estimate heliospheric modulation in an extension of the force-field model. What emerges is a complex picture of the interstellar electron and positron spectra that must be shaped by a number of transport processes beyond the simplest models.
Primary authors
Dr
Andrea Vittino
(TTK, RWTH Aachen)
Prof.
Philipp Mertsch
(TTK, RWTH Aachen)
