The High Energy Light Isotope eXperiment program of direct cosmic-ray studies ...

• Main Authors: HELIX Collaboration, Coutu, S., Allison, P. S., Baiocchi, M., Beatty, J. J., Beaufore, L., Calderon, D. H., Castano, A. G., Chen, Y., Green, N., Hanna, D., Jeon, H. B., Klein, S. B., Kunkler, B., Lang, M., Mbarek, R., McBride, K., Mognet, S. I., Musser, J., Nutter, S., OBrien, S., Park, N., Powledge, K. M., Sakai, K., Tabata, M., Tarle, G., Tuttle, J. M., Visser, G., Wakely, S. P., Yu, M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2023
• Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM; Instrumentation and Detectors physics.ins-det; FOS Physical sciences; Antarctic; Canada; Kiruna; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2312.06796; https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.06796

HELIX is a new NASA-sponsored instrument aimed at measuring the spectra and composition of light cosmic-ray isotopes from hydrogen to neon nuclei, in particular the clock isotopes 10Be (radioactive, with 1.4 Myr lifetime) and 9Be (stable). The latter are unique markers of the production and Galactic propagation of secondary cosmic-ray nuclei, and are needed to resolve such important mysteries as the proportion of secondary positrons in the excess of antimatter observed by the AMS-02 experiment. By using a combination of a 1 T superconducting magnet spectrometer (with drift-chamber tracker) with a high-resolution time-of-flight detector system and ring-imaging Cherenkov detector, mass-resolved isotope measurements of light cosmic-ray nuclei will be possible up to 3 GeV/n in a first stratospheric balloon flight from Kiruna, Sweden to northern Canada, anticipated to take place in early summer 2024. An eventual longer Antarctic balloon flight of HELIX will yield measurements up to 10 GeV/n, sampling production ... : Presented at the 16th Topical Seminar on Innovative Particle and Radiation Detectors (IPRD23), Siena, Italy, to appear in JINST Proc ...