Global Cosmic-ray-related Luminosity and Energy Budget of the Milky Way
Abstract
We use the GALPROP code for cosmic-ray (CR) propagation to calculate the broadband luminosity spectrum of the Milky Way related to CR propagation and interactions in the interstellar medium. This includes γ-ray emission from the production and subsequent decay of neutral pions (π^0), bremsstrahlung, and inverse Compton scattering, and synchrotron radiation. The Galaxy is found to be nearly a CR electron calorimeter, but only if γ-ray emitting processes are taken into account. Synchrotron radiation alone accounts for only one-third of the total electron energy losses with ~10%-20% of the total synchrotron emission from secondary CR electrons and positrons. The relationship between far-infrared and radio luminosity that we find from our models is consistent with that found for galaxies in general. The results will be useful for understanding the connection between diffuse emissions from radio through γ-rays in "normal" (non-active galactic nucleus dominated) galaxies as well as for estimating the broadband extragalactic diffuse background from these kinds of galaxies.
Additional Information
© 2010 American Astronomical Society. Received 2010 June 14; accepted 2010 August 24; published 2010 September 20. A.W.S. and T.A.P. would like to thank the organizers of the Infrared Emission, Interstellar Medium, and Star Formation Workshop (http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/IR10/) and the participants for the many stimulating talks and discussions.We would also like to thank George Helou and Heinz Völk for useful comments. T.A.P. acknowledges support from NASA Grant No. NNX10AE78G. I.V.M. acknowledges support from NASA Grant No. NNX09AC15G.Attached Files
Published - Strong2010p11596Astrophys_J_Lett.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 20595
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20101029-095644201
- NNX10AE78G
- NASA
- NNX09AC15G
- NASA
- Created
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2010-11-01Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field