{
  "id": "2101.05803",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2021-01-14T18:59:59.000Z",
  "updated": "2021-01-14T18:59:59.000Z",
  "title": "Rigorous theory for secondary cosmic-ray ionization",
  "authors": [
    "Alexei V. Ivlev",
    "Kedron Silsbee",
    "Marco Padovani",
    "Daniele Galli"
  ],
  "comment": "Accepted to ApJ",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.GA"
  ],
  "abstract": "The energy spectrum of electrons produced in molecular gas by interstellar cosmic rays (CRs) is rigorously calculated as a function of gas column density $N$ traversed by the CRs. This allows us to accurately compute the local value of the secondary ionization rate of molecular hydrogen, $\\zeta_{\\rm sec}(N)$, as a function of the local primary ionization rate, $\\zeta_p(N)$. The ratio $\\zeta_{\\rm sec}/\\zeta_p$ increases monotonically with $N$, and can considerably exceed the value of $\\approx0.67$ commonly adopted in the literature. For sufficiently soft interstellar spectra, the dependence $\\zeta_{\\rm sec}/\\zeta_p$ versus $N$ is practically insensitive to their particular shape and thus is a general characteristic of the secondary CR ionization in dense gas.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2021-01-14T18:59:59.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "secondary cosmic-ray ionization",
      "rigorous theory",
      "local primary ionization rate",
      "interstellar cosmic rays",
      "secondary cr ionization"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 0,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}