Abstract
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,
, as a function of the local primary ionization rate, ζ
p
(N). The ratio
increases monotonically with N, and can considerably exceed the value of ≈0.67 commonly adopted in the literature. For sufficiently soft interstellar spectra, the dependence
versus N is practically insensitive to their particular shape and thus is a general characteristic of the secondary CR ionization in dense gas.
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Subject
Space and Planetary Science,Astronomy and Astrophysics
Cited by
13 articles.
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