Abundance Ratios of OH/CO and HCO+/CO as Probes of the Cosmic-Ray Ionization Rate in Diffuse Clouds

The cosmic-ray ionization rate (CRIR, ζ _2 ) is one of the key parameters controlling the formation and destruction of various molecules in molecular clouds. However, the current most commonly used CRIR tracers, such as ${{\rm{H}}}_{3}^{+}$ , OH ^+ , and H _2 O ^+ , are hard to detect and require th...

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