Cosmic-ray electron injection from the ionization of nuclei
arXiv:0908.3217 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.121102
Abstract
We show that the secondary electrons ejected from the ionization of heavy ions can be injected into the acceleration process that occurs at supernova remnant shocks. This electron injection mechanism works since ions are ionized during the acceleration when they move already with relativistic speed, just like ejected electrons do. Using the abundances of heavy nuclei measured in cosmic rays at Earth, we estimate the electron/proton ratio at the source to be ~10^-4, big enough to account for the nonthermal synchrotron emission observed in young SNRs. We also show that the ionization process can limit the maximum energy that heavy ions can reach.
4 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters
References in corpus (8)
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- Relativistic Electron Shock Drift Acceleration in Low Mach Number Galaxy Cluster Shocks
- On the non-thermal electron-to-proton ratio at cosmic acceleration sites
- Supernova explosions of massive stars and cosmic rays
- The role of ionization in the shock acceleration theory
- Acceleration of Heavy Ions at Non-Relativistic Collisionless Shocks