Cosmic‐Ray Sources and Source Composition

Present data on cosmic-ray elemental and isotopic relative abundances are shown to be unable to distinguish between various models of cosmic-ray sources and their composition. For example, the model of freshly nucleosynthesized material from supernova explosions as the cosmic-ray source is unable to account for some measured, key cosmic-ray elemental abundances. This and two other models are evaluated here in light of recent isotopic and elemental measurements. It is shown that model-dependent preferential injection, acceleration, and reacceleration do not allow a clear distinction of one model against the others. Future measurements of critical elements and isotopes are suggested, which should afford us the ability to do that. We base our suggestions on measurements and a quantitative comparison between the predictions of the standard leaky-box model for the Galactic propagation of cosmic rays and one in which reacceleration is taken into account.