Journal article
Efficient micromirror confinement of sub-teraelectronvolt cosmic rays in galaxy clusters
- Abstract:
- Cosmic rays (CRs) play a pivotal role in shaping the thermal and dynamical properties of astrophysical environments, such as galaxies and galaxy clusters. Recent observations suggest a stronger confinement of CRs in certain astrophysical systems than predicted by current CR-transport theories. Here, we show that the incorporation of microscale physics into CR-transport models can account for this enhanced CR confinement. We develop a theoretical description of the effect of magnetic microscale fluctuations originating from the mirror instability on macroscopic CR diffusion. We confirm our theory with large-dynamical-range simulations of CR transport in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters and kinetic simulations of CR transport in micromirror fields. We conclude that sub-teraelectronvolt CR confinement in the ICM is far more effective than previously anticipated on the basis of Galactic-transport extrapolations. The transformative impact of micromirrors on CR diffusion provides insights into how microphysics can reciprocally affect macroscopic dynamics and observable structures across a range of astrophysical scales.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.7MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41550-024-02442-1
Authors
+ Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0439y7842
- Grant:
- EP/M022331/1
- Publisher:
- Nature Research
- Journal:
- Nature Astronomy More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 3
- Pages:
- 438-448
- Publication date:
- 2025-01-03
- Acceptance date:
- 2024-11-08
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2397-3366
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
2055432
- Local pid:
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pubs:2055432
- Deposit date:
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2024-11-08
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Reichherzer et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2025, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Notes:
- For the purpose of Open Access the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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