On the Interaction Between Cosmic Rays and Dark Matter Molecular Clouds - II. The Age Distribution of Cosmic Ray Electrons

Abstract

We explore further the proposal in paper I of this series that the confinement time of cosmic ray nuclei in the Milky Way is determined by their interaction with dark matter molecular clouds rather than by their escape from the halo, as is assumed in conventional models of cosmic ray propagation. The same proposal can be made for cosmic ray electrons. This proposal leads to a specific age distribution for the electrons which is in agreement with Tang's (1984) observations of the electron spectrum at high energies but not with Nishimura et al's (1980) earlier data, which lead to a flatter spectrum. However, the simplest leaky box and diffusion models disagree with both sets of data so that our trapping model is supported if Tang's data are correct.