%0 Journal Article
%T Secondary Production as the Origin for the Cosmic Ray Positron Excess
%A S. P. Ahlen
%A G. Tarl¨¦
%J Physics
%D 2014
%I arXiv
%X The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has recently released high-precision data for cosmic rays, and has verified an excess of positrons relative to expectations from cosmic ray interactions in the interstellar medium. An exciting and well-known possibility for the excess is production of electron-positron pairs by annihilating dark matter particles in the halo of the Galaxy. We have constructed a new data-driven Turbulent Flow Model for positron production and propagation that incorporates a number of recent astrophysics observations and measurements. Here we show that the model agrees well with the observed positron flux, with no need for dark matter or other exotic production mechanisms. Our model has implications for other areas of astrophysics research, including the anisotropy of one hundred TeV cosmic rays, indications of a change of the slope of the cosmic ray proton spectrum above one TeV, the nature of the power spectrum of turbulence in the interstellar medium, and the possibility of a galactic wind.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.7239v5