Cosmic ray (CR) sources leave signatures in the isotopic abundances of CRs. Current models of Galactic CRs that consider supernovae (SNe) shocks as the main sites of particle acceleration cannot satisfactorily explain the higher ^22^Ne/^20^Ne ratio in CRs compared to the interstellar medium. Although stellar winds from massive stars have been invoked, their contribution relative to SNe ejecta has been taken as a free parameter. Here, we present a theoretical calculation of the relative contributions of wind termination shocks (WTSs) and SNe shocks in superbubbles, based on the hydrodynamics of winds in clusters, the standard stellar mass function, and stellar evolution theory. We find that the contribution of WTSs towards the total CR production is at least 25 per cent, which rises to >~50 per cent for young (~~10^35^erg/s) star clusters, as predicted by star cluster mass function. Moreover, WTSs can accelerate CRs to PeV energies, and solve other long-standing problems of the standard SN paradigm of CR acceleration.

Cone search capability for table J/MNRAS/493/3159/tablec1 (This table provides a list of SNRs which are located within 5kpc)