Abstracts, Galactic Center Workshop '98
ABSTRACT

Cosmic Rays in the Galactic Center Region

Biermann, P.L.

MPIfR, Bonn and Dept for Physics and Astronomy, Univ. Bonn

ABSTRACT: There is some evidence, that high energy cosmic rays from the Galactic Center have been detected, near 1018 eV. If this detection is real, it is most readily interpreted as energetic neutrons, as a result of p-p or p- gamma interactions of high energy cosmic ray particles in the Galactic Center region. I review briefly the possible sources for such energies, and demonstrate that massive stars with their winds and their ensuing supernova explosions are natural candidates to have produced the cosmic ray particles up to ~ 3 1018 eV in the Galactic Center region - as elsewhere in the Galaxy. With interactions near the source sites we also obtain a ready interpretation for the EGRET gamma -spectrum of the inner Galaxy. Many tasks remain, such as calculating the emission spectrum from the powerful shocks that run through the winds of evolved massive stars, including gamma -line emission, and to take into account the powerful heating and ionization that must occur near the source sites of supernovae. For sufficiently high hadronic interaction columns, as seems plausible in the Galactic Center region, an entire cascade of interactions and emissions ensues. These effects are just for the normal stars we believe to understand well.

LINKS: Program, Author, plbiermann@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de