Origin of the Cosmic-Ray Spectral Hardening

Recent data from ATIC, CREAM, and PAMELA indicate that the cosmic-ray energy spectra of protons and nuclei exhibit a remarkable hardening at energies above 100 GeV nucleon^-1. We propose that the hardening is an interstellar propagation effect that originates from a spatial change of the cosmic-ray transport properties in different regions of the Galaxy. The key hypothesis is that the diffusion coefficient is not separable into energy and space variables as usually assumed. Under this scenario, we can reproduce the observational data well. Our model has several implications for cosmic-ray acceleration/propagation physics and can be tested by ongoing experiments such as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer or Fermi-LAT.