Speaker
Description
Cosmic rays (CRs) regulate ionization, heating, and chemical reactions in star-forming regions, and transition from diffusion in turbulent, magnetized environments to ballistic streaming in dense cores. However, previous estimates of diffusion coefficients, often inferred from gamma-ray observations, are not directly connected to the small-scale transport governed by gyro-scale microphysics. In this study, we present a new empirical method to derive CR diffusion coefficients from small-scale magnetic field properties. Using radio/submillimeter polarization data from JCMT and ALMA, we estimate magnetic field strengths and determine the power spectra of magnetic turbulence, from which diffusion coefficients are obtained. We then compare these results with Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data across multiple scales. This work provides a first validation of a microphysics-grounded, observationally driven framework for CR transport.
