DO WE SEE THE ‘IRON PEAK’?

Abstract

Recent measurements of the cosmic ray (CR) energy spectrum in the PeV region and above have confirmed the remarkable sharpness of the knee and revealed another structure at about 70PeV which we call the ‘Iron Peak’. The position and the shape of this structure lead us to associate its likely origin with the same single source responsible for the the knee. We have analysed the shape of the single source spectrum and concluded that its mass composition is rather similar to that for the bulk of CR in the TeV ÷ PeV region. Since it is generally accepted that these CR originate mainly in supernova explosions, this gives an additional argument in favour of our single source being a supernova remnant.