Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-25T19:23:00.362Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Wolf Rayet Stars and the Origin of the 22Ne Excess in Cosmic Rays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

M. Cassé
Affiliation:
Section d'Astrophysique, Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Saclay, France
J. A. Paul
Affiliation:
Section d'Astrophysique, Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Saclay, France
J. P. Meyer
Affiliation:
Section d'Astrophysique, Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Saclay, France

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

First order Fermi acceleration at the boundary between supersonic stellar winds from OB and Wolf-Rayet stars and the surrounding interstellar medium could be influential in the bulk energization of the local cosmic radiation. Since wind acceleration is not supposed to accelerate thermal particles, a continuous injection of low energy particles (E ~ 1 to 10 MeV/n) is required. We keep open the possibility that these particles may be injected from the interior of the stellar cavity, i.e. by the mass-losing star itself via a flare-like surface activity for instance. Observations of flare activity on hot and massive stars are mandatory to settle this idea. In this context, we expect that the CR reservoir is the surface of young and active stars and that the difference between the CR source (CRS) composition (i.e. corrected for propagation effects in the interstellar medium, ISM) and the surface composition of young stars (reflecting for most of them the present local ISM) is principally due to selective effects at injection depending on the atomic properties of the elements. This idea is supported by 3 arguments (Cassé and Goret, 1978, Meyer et al., 1979) i) the general resemblance between solar CR elemental abundances and elemental CRS abundances (see e.g. Mewalt, 1980) ii) the correlation between the (CRS/local galactic) abundance ratio and the first ionization potential and iii) the fact that dust grains must have been thoroughly destroyed in the medium from which CR are extracted. In the interstellar gas in which dust grains are present, Ni, Fe, Mg and especially Ca and Al are highly depleted whereas they are normally abundant in CR.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1981 

References

Audouze, J., Chièze, J.P. and Viangioni-Flam, E. 1980, Astr. Ap. (in press).Google Scholar
Balasubrahmanyan, 1979, 16th Int. Cosmic Ray Conf., Kyoto, 14, 121.Google Scholar
Cassé, M. and Goret, P. 1978, Ap. J. 221, 703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassé, M., Meyer, J.P. and Reeves, H. 1979, 16th Int. Cosmic Ray Conf., Kyoto, 12, 114.Google Scholar
Casse, M. and Paul, J.A. 1980, Ap. J., 237, 236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Couch, R.G. and Arnett, W.D. 1972, Ap. J., 178, 771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mewalt, R.A. 1980 (preprint).Google Scholar
Mewalt, R.A., Spalding, J.D., Stone, E.C. and Vogt, R.E. 1979, Proc. 16th Int. Cosmic Ray Conf., Kyoto. 12, 86.Google Scholar
Meyer, J.P., Cassé, M. and Reeves, H. 1979, Proc. 16th Int. Cosmic Ray Conf., Kyoto, 12, 108.Google Scholar
Salpeter, E.E. 1977, Ann. Rev. Astr. Ap., 16, 267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitzer, L. and Jenkins, B. 1976, Ann. Rev. Astr. Ap., 13, 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stothers, R. and Chin, C.W. 1977, Ap. J., 216, 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanbeveren, D. and Packet, W. 1979, Astr. Ap., 80, 242.Google Scholar