Secondary cosmic positrons in an inhomogeneous diffusion model

Abstract

Abstract One aim of cosmic ray measurements is the search for possible signatures of annihilating or decaying dark matter. The so-called positron excess has attracted a lot of attention in this context. On the other hand it has been proposed that the data might challenge the established diffusion model for cosmic ray propagation. We investigate an inhomogeneous diffusion model by solving the corresponding equations analytically. Depending on the propagation parameters we find that the spectral features of the positron spectrum are affected significantly. We also discuss the influence of the inhomogeneity on hadronic spectra.