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Abstract

A self-consistent model of a one-dimensional cosmic-ray (CR) halo around the Galactic disk is formulated with the restriction of a minimum number of free parameters. It is demonstrated that the turbulent cascade of MHD waves does not necessarily play an essential role in the halo formation. Instead, an increase of the Alfvén velocity with distance to the disk leads to an efficient generic mechanism of the turbulent redshift, enhancing CR scattering by the self-generated MHD waves. As a result, the calculated size of the CR halo at lower energies is determined by the halo sheath, an energy-dependent region around the disk beyond which the CR escape becomes purely advective. At sufficiently high energies, the halo size is set by the characteristic thickness of the ionized gas distribution. The calculated Galactic spectrum of protons shows a remarkable agreement with observations, reproducing the position of the spectral break at ≈ 0.6 TeV and the spectral shape up to ~10 TeV.