Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Open Access Master's Report
Degree Name
Master of Science in Physics (MS)
Administrative Home Department
Department of Physics
Advisor 1
Petra Huentemeyer
Committee Member 1
David Nitz
Committee Member 2
Robert Nemiroff
Abstract
It is assumed that the distribution of the Milky Way cosmic rays, the cosmic ray ‘sea,’ is even throughout the Galaxy. This assumption can be tested by measuring gamma rays produced from cosmic ray interactions with Giant Molecular Clouds. The gamma ray flux depends on the mass and distance of a given molecular cloud as well as the cosmic ray flux in its vicinity. Thus a predicted gamma ray flux can be compared to actual flux data from a detector. Uncertainties from measuring the mass of and distance to the clouds are taken into account for this prediction. This report also discusses the HAWC water Cherenkov detector and why it is a good resource for this study. HAWC significance maps currently do not show significant flux from Giant Molecular Clouds against the background. A 95% upper limit is calculated for gamma ray and cosmic ray fluxes, which only weakly constrain their possible range.
Recommended Citation
Coel, Matt, "EFFECTS OF MASS AND DISTANCE UNCERTAINTIES ON CALCULATIONS OF FLUX FROM GIANT MOLECULAR CLOUDS", Open Access Master's Report, Michigan Technological University, 2018.
Included in
Other Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons, Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy Commons