Energy Spectra of Heavy Cosmic Ray Nuclei from 0.5 GeV/amu to 10,000 GeV/amu

• Main Authors: P. J. Boyle, M. Ave, F. Gahbauer, J. Hör, M. Ichimura, D. Müller, A. Romero-wolf, S. Wakely
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.69.96; http://ik1au1.fzk.de/~joerg/pub/29ICRC3-65.pdf

We present new results on the energy spectra of cosmic ray nuclei which are derived from the long-duration balloon flight of the TRACER detector in Antarctica in December, 2003. The measurements are corrected for detection efficiencies, interaction losses in the atmosphere and in the instrument, and for overlap effects due to limited energy resolution. Hence, we report the absolute intensities at the top of the atmosphere for the cosmic ray nuclei over the charge range from oxygen (Z = 8) to iron (Z = 26). The range of the individual energy spectra extends from about 0.5 GeV/amu to several 1000 GeV/amu for the more abundant species (O, Ne, Mg, Si, and Fe), and to about 1000 GeV/amu for the rarer species S, Ar, and Ca. 1.