Energy spectra of gamma rays, electrons, and neutrinos produced at interactions of relativistic protons with low energy radiation
Abstract
We derived simple analytical parametrizations for energy distributions of photons, electrons, and neutrinos produced in interactions of relativistic protons with an isotropic monochromatic radiation field. The results on photomeson processes are obtained using numerical simulations of proton-photon interactions based on the public available Monte Carlo code SOPHIA. For calculations of energy spectra of electrons and positrons from the pair-production (Bethe-Heitler) process we suggest a simple formalism based on the well-known differential cross section of the process in the rest frame of the proton. The analytical presentations of energy distributions of photons and leptons provide a simple but accurate approach for calculations of broadband energy spectra of gamma rays and neutrinos in cosmic proton accelerators located in radiation dominated environments.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review D
- Pub Date:
- August 2008
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0803.0688
- Bibcode:
- 2008PhRvD..78c4013K
- Keywords:
-
- 12.20.Ds;
- 13.20.Cz;
- 13.60.-r;
- 13.85.Qk;
- Specific calculations;
- Decays of pi mesons;
- Photon and charged-lepton interactions with hadrons;
- Inclusive production with identified leptons photons or other nonhadronic particles;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 17 pages, 21 figures, published in Phys.Rev.D. We have corrected two misprints in the text. We note that the correct expressions were used for calculations in the previous versions of the paper, thus the misprints did not have an impact on the figures