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arXiv · 1210.8180

Galactic Streams of Cosmic-ray Electrons and Positrons

Matthew D. Kistler·Hasan Yuksel·Alexander Friedland
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Abstract

Isotropic diffusion is a key assumption in many models of cosmic-ray electrons and positrons. We find that simulation results imply a critical energy of ~10-1000~GeV above which electrons and positrons can spend their entire lives in streams threading magnetic fields, due to energy losses. This would restrict the number of electron/positron sources contributing at Earth, likely leading to smooth electron/positron spectra, as is observed. For positrons, this could be as few as one, with an enhanced flux that would ease energetics concerns of a pulsar origin of the positron excess, or even zero, bringing dark matter to the fore. We conclude that ideas about electron/positron propagation must be revised and discuss implications for recent AMS-02 data.

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Matthew D. Kistler, Hasan Yuksel, Alexander Friedland. 2012-10-30. Galactic Streams of Cosmic-ray Electrons and Positrons. https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.8180

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