Cosmic ray signatures of a 2-3 Myr old local supernova

Abstract

The supernova explosion which deposited ${}^{60}$Fe isotopes on Earth 2-3 million years ago should have also produced cosmic rays which contribute to the locally observed cosmic ray flux. We show that the contribution of this "local source" explains the "anomalies" observed in the positron and antiproton fluxes and explains why their spectral shape agrees with that of the proton flux. At the same time, this local source component accounts for the difference in the slopes of the spectra of cosmic ray nuclei as the result of the slightly varying relative importance of the "local" and the average component for distinct CR nuclei. Such a "local supernova" model for the spectra of nuclei can be tested via a combined measurement of the energy dependence of the boron-to-carbon (primary-to-secondary cosmic rays) ratio and of the antiproton spectrum: While the antiproton spectrum is predicted to extend approximately as a power law into the TeV range without any softening break, the B/C ratio is expected to show a "plateau" at a level fixed by the observed positron excess in the 30-300 GeV range. We discuss the observability of such a plateau with dedicated experiments for the measurement of the cosmic ray composition in 10 TeV energy range (NUCLEON, ISS-CREAM).

v2: added section on electrons, references and extended discussion; to appear in PRD; 10 pages, 7 pdf figures

References in corpus (15)

• Observation of an anomalous positron abundance in the cosmic radiation
• Cosmic-Ray Proton and Helium Spectra from the First CREAM Flight
• The origin of the positron excess in cosmic rays
• Origin of the Cosmic Ray Spectral Hardening
• High-energy antiprotons from old supernova remnants
• Testing astrophysical models for the PAMELA positron excess with cosmic ray nuclei
• New calculation of antiproton production by cosmic ray protons and nuclei
• Escape model for Galactic cosmic rays and an early extragalactic transition
• Interpretation of the cosmic ray positron and antiproton fluxes
• The Connection Between the Positron Fraction Anomaly and the Spectral Features in Galactic Cosmic-Ray Hadrons
• Terrestrial Effects Of Nearby Supernovae In The Early Pleistocene
• Filamentary Diffusion of Cosmic Rays on Small Scales
• Enhanced Pomeron diagrams: re-summation of unitarity cuts
• Electrons and Positrons in Cosmic Rays
• B/C ratio and the PAMELA positron excess

Cited by in corpus (26)

• A Precision Search for WIMPs with Charged Cosmic Rays
• AMS-100: The Next Generation Magnetic Spectrometer in Space -- An International Science Platform for Physics and Astrophysics at Lagrange Point 2
• Galactic factories of cosmic-ray electrons and positrons
• Reconciling cosmic ray diffusion with Galactic magnetic field models
• High energy neutrino flux from individual blazar flares
• A nearby recent supernova that ejected the runaway star zeta Oph, the pulsar PSRB1706-16, and 60-Fe found on Earth
• Cosmic ray spectrum of protons plus helium nuclei between 6 TeV and 158 TeV from HAWC data
• Secondary cosmic rays in the NUCLEON space experiment
• Heliospheric Compression due to Recent Nearby Supernova Explosions
• Vela as the Source of Galactic Cosmic Rays above 100 TeV
• Probing galactic cosmic ray distribution with TeV gamma-ray sky
• Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission at TeV energy
• Pion decay model of TIBET-AS$\gamma$ PeV gamma-ray signal
• High-energy neutrinos from cosmic ray interactions in the Local Bubble
• High-energy neutrinos from Galactic superbubbles
• The DAMPE excess and gamma-ray constraints
• Supernova Dust Evolution Probed by Deep-sea 60Fe Time History
• A Way Out of the Bubble Trouble? - Upon Reconstructing the Origin of the Local Bubble and Loop I via Radioisotopic Signatures on Earth
• Indirect effects of dark matter
• A simple and natural interpretations of the DAMPE cosmic-ray electron/positron spectrum within two sigma deviations
• Proposed Lunar Measurements of $r$-Process Radioisotopes to Distinguish Origin of Deep-sea 244Pu
• The New Astronomical Frontier of Interstellar Objects
• Impacts of Dust Grains Accelerated by Supernovae on the Moon
• Transport parameters from AMS-02 F/Si data and fluorine source abundance
• Proposition of FSR Photon Suppression Employing a Two-Positron Decay Dark Matter Model to Explain Positron Anomaly in Cosmic Rays
• New limit on high Galactic latitude PeV gamma-ray flux from Tibet AS-gamma data