A nearby cosmic-ray source would make the gamma-ray spectral indices of molecular clouds evolve differently with energy, providing a new observational test.
Cosmic ray density variations in nearby giant molecular clouds
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In this paper, we analyzed 12 years of Fermi LAT gamma-ray data towards three nearby giant molecular clouds (GMCs), i.e., R~CrA, Chamaeleon, and Lupus. We calibrated the gas column density of these regions by using the Planck dust opacity map as well as the Gaia extinction map. With both the gamma-ray observations and gas column density maps, we derived the cosmic ray densities in the three GMCs. We found the derived CR spectra have almost the same shape but significantly different normalizations, which may reflect that the distributions of CRs in the vicinity of solar systems are inhomogeneous.
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Deciphering the spectral bumps of Galactic cosmic rays through gamma-ray observations of nearby molecular clouds
A nearby cosmic-ray source would make the gamma-ray spectral indices of molecular clouds evolve differently with energy, providing a new observational test.