The Theoretical Power Law Exponent for Electron and Positron Cosmic Rays: A Comment on the Recent Letter of the AMS Collaboration

In a recent letter, the AMS collaboration reported the detailed and extensive data concerning the distribution in energy of electron and positron cosmic rays. A central result of the experimental work resides in the energy regime $30\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}<E<1\mathrm{T}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}$ wherein the power law exponent of the energy distribution is measured to be $\alpha (\mathrm{e}\mathrm{x}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{t})=3.17$. In virtue of the Fermi statistics obeyed by electrons and positrons, a theoretical value was predicted as $\alpha (\mathrm{t}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{y})=3.151374$ in very good agreement with experimental data. The consequences of this agreement between theory and experiment concerning the sources of cosmic ray electrons and positrons are briefly explored.