Galactic gas models strongly affect the determination of the diffusive halo height

Abstract

The height of the Milky Way diffusion halo, above which cosmic-rays can freely escape the galaxy, is among the most critical, yet poorly known, parameters in cosmic-ray physics. Measurements of radioactive secondaries, such as 10Be or 26Al, which decay equivalently throughout the diffusive volume, are expected to provide the strongest constraints. This has motivated significant observational work to constrain their isotopic ratios, along with theoretical work to constrain the cross-section uncertainties that are thought to dominate radioactive secondary fluxes. In this work, we show that the imprecise modelling of the Milky Way spiral arms significantly affects our ability to translate 10Be and 26Al fluxes into constraints on the diffusive halo height, biasing our current results. Utilizing state-of-the-art spiral arms models we produce new predictions for the 10Be and 26Al fluxes that motivate upcoming measurements by AMS-02 and HELIX.