Pinpointing cosmic ray propagation with the AMS-02 experiment

Abstract

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), which is scheduled to be deployed onboard the International Space Station later this year, will be capable of measuring the composition and spectra of GeV-TeV cosmic rays with unprecedented precision. In this paper, we study how the projected measurements from AMS-02 of stable secondary-to-primary and unstable ratios (such as boron-to-carbon and beryllium-10-to-beryllium-9) can constrain the models used to describe the propagation of cosmic rays throughout the Milky Way. We find that within the context of fairly simple propagation models, all of the model parameters can be determined with high precision from the projected AMS-02 data. Such measurements are less constraining in more complex scenarios, however, which allow for departures from a power-law form for the diffusion coefficient, for example, or for inhomogeneity or stochasticity in the distribution and chemical abundances of cosmic ray sources.