MSc Defense by Zhanfeng Zhu

Galactic Sources of Cosmic Rays in Light of Recent IceCube Results

Cosmic rays produce secondary particles, including photons and neutrinos, when they interact with interstellar gas. These signals reach Earth as part of a multi-messenger paradigm, providing a new approach to observing our Galaxy. Recently, the IceCube collaboration first confirmed the neutrino signals from our galaxy which motivated the thesis to model the neutrino spectrum that arrives at Earth. The thesis uses the public software DRAGON2 to simulate the cosmic ray flux, applying the energy spectrum to model the production of diffusive secondary particle spectra. The potential contribution of the unresolved sources is also considered. Finally, the diffusive flux and unresolved flux of galactic neutrinos are combined to form a total neutrino spectrum. Our model predicts the neutrino spectrum of our galaxy, which we then compare to the results from the IceCube and other existing models.

Supervisor: Markus Ahlers

Censor: Steen Hannestad