Iron and nickel cosmic ray nuclei play a key role in the understanding of the acceleration and propagation mechanisms of charged particles in our Galaxy. In fact, iron and nickel are the most ...abundant nuclei among the heavy elements and provide favorable conditions for a low background measurement thanks to the negligible contamination from spallation of higher mass elements. CALET, operating on the ISS since 2015, has excellent capabilities of charge discrimination up to nickel and can measure the energy of cosmic ray nuclei thanks to a lead tungstate calorimeter providing a direct and precise measurement of heavy charged nuclei spectra. In this contribution, a direct measurement of iron and nickel nuclei spectra in the energy range from 10 GeV/n to 2 TeV/n and from 8.8 GeV/n to 240 GeV/n, respectively is presented. More than five years of data collected by CALET were used. A detailed study of systematic uncertainties is also illustrated. The measured spectra are compared with the ones measured by other experiments and are compatible with a single power law fit in the energy region from 50 GeV/n to 2 TeV/n and from 20 GeV/n to 240 GeV/n for iron and nickel respectively. Also, the ratio between nickel and iron spectra is reported.
We study the anisotropy of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) events collected by the Telescope Array (TA) detector in the first 40 months of operation. Following earlier studies, we examine event ...sets with energy thresholds of 10 EeV, 40 EeV, and 57 EeV. We find that the distributions of the events in right ascension and declination are compatible with an isotropic distribution in all three sets. We then compare with previously reported clustering of the UHECR events at small angular scales. No significant clustering is found in the TA data. We then check the events with E > 57 EeV for correlations with nearby active galactic nuclei. No significant correlation is found. Finally, we examine all three sets for correlations with the large-scale structure (LSS) of the universe. We find that the two higher-energy sets are compatible with both an isotropic distribution and the hypothesis that UHECR sources follow the matter distribution of the universe (the LSS hypothesis), while the event set with E > 10 EeV is compatible with isotropy and is not compatible with the LSS hypothesis at 95% CL unless large deflection angles are also assumed. We show that accounting for UHECR deflections in a realistic model of the Galactic magnetic field can make this set compatible with the LSS hypothesis.
The risks to aircrew health posed by prolonged exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation at aircraft altitudes have recently received renewed attention. Civil and military aircraft currently on ...the drawing board are expected to operate at higher altitudes (>12 km) and fly longer ranges than do existing aircraft, thereby exposing their crews to higher levels of ionizing radiation. for longer periods of time. We are currently carrying out dosimetric measurements of the ionizing radiation environment at ∼20 km altitude using portable Si detectors aboard NASA's two ER-2 high altitude research aircraft. The instruments, Liulin-4J, have been extensively calibrated at several particle accelerators. With these instruments, we can measure not only absorbed dose, but also variation of the absorbed dose as a function of time. We report radiation dose measurements as function of time, altitude, and latitude for several ER-2 missions.
We measure the spectrum of cosmic rays with energies greater than 1018.2eV with the fluorescence detectors (FDs) and the surface detectors (SDs) of the Telescope Array Experiment using the data taken ...in our first 2.3-year observation from May 27, 2008 to September 7, 2010. A hybrid air shower reconstruction technique is employed to improve accuracies in determination of arrival directions and primary energies of cosmic rays using both FD and SD data. The energy spectrum presented here is in agreement with our previously published spectra and the HiRes results.
Diamonds have attractive properties for use as radiation detectors. Recent advances in diamond fabrication techniques have made it possible to produce almost perfect single crystal materials that ...have electrical properties suitable for radiation detectors. We therefore developed detectors made of high-purity synthetic IIa diamonds grown by a high-pressure, high-temperature method and investigated their basic properties. These detectors have Schottky and Ohmic electrodes, and the leakage current is less than 20 pA with reverse bias voltages up to 2.4 kV, demonstrating that the detector withstands high bias voltage. The results of testing the electrical properties show that the electrodes work well. The best detector achieved an energy resolution of 15.4 keV (FWHM) for 5.486 MeV alpha particles from /sup 241/Am.
Cosmic rays in the energy range 1018.0–1018.5 eV are thought to have a light, probably protonic, composition. To study their origin one can search for anisotropy in their arrival directions. ...Extragalactic cosmic rays should be isotropic, but galactic cosmic rays of this type should be seen mostly along the galactic plane, and there should be a shortage of events coming from directions near the galactic anticenter. This is due to the fact that, under the influence of the galactic magnetic field, the transition from ballistic to diffusive behavior is well advanced, and this qualitative picture persists over the whole energy range. Guided by models of the galactic magnetic field that indicate that the enhancement along the galactic plane should have a standard deviation of about 20° in galactic latitude, and the deficit in the galactic anticenter direction should have a standard deviation of about 50° in galactic longitude, we use the data of the Telescope Array surface detector in 1018.0 to 1018.5 eV energy range to search for these effects. The data are isotropic. Neither an enhancement along the galactic plane nor a deficit in the galactic anticenter direction is found. Using these data we place an upper limit on the fraction of EeV cosmic rays of galactic origin at 1.3% at 95% confidence level.
We search for correlations between the positions of extragalactic objects and the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with primary energy E > or =, slanted 40 EeV as observed ...by the surface detector array of the Telescope Array (TA) experiment during the first 40 months of operation. We examine several public astronomical object catalogs, including the Veron-Cetty and Veron catalog of active galactic nuclei. We count the number of TA events correlated with objects in each catalog as a function of three parameters: the maximum angular separation between a TA event and an object, the minimum energy of the events, and the maximum redshift of the objects. We determine the combination of these parameters that maximizes the correlations, and we calculate the probability of having the same levels of correlations from an isotropic distribution of UHECR arrival directions. No statistically significant correlations are found when penalties for scanning over the above parameters and for searching in several catalogs are taken into account.
The performance of the MOON detector for a next-generation neutrino-less double-beta decay experiment was evaluated by means of the Monte Carlo method. The MOON detector was found to be a feasible ...solution for the future experiment to search for the Majorana neutrino mass in the range of 100-30 meV.
The CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) is a high-energy astroparticle physics space experiment installed on the International Space Station (ISS), developed and operated by Japan in ...collaboration with Italy and the United States. The CALET mission goals include the investigation of possible nearby sources of high-energy electrons, of the details of galactic particle acceleration and propagation, and of potential signatures of dark matter. CALET measures the cosmic-ray electron+positron flux up to 20 TeV, gamma-rays up to 10 TeV, and nuclei with Z=1 to 40 up to 1, 000 TeV for the more abundant elements during a long-term observation aboard the ISS. Starting science operation in mid-October 2015, CALET performed continuous observation without major interruption with close to 20 million triggered events over 10 GeV per month. Based on the data taken during the first two-years, we present an overview of CALET observations: 1) Electron+positron energy spectrum, 2) Nuclei analysis, 3) Gamma-ray observation including a characterization of on-orbit performance. Results of the electromagnetic counterpart search for LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave events are discussed as well.
We are developing a medium energy particle detector in a high-count rate environment, in order to solve the acceleration mechanism and the process of high-energy particles in the collision less ...plasma shock region in the space. The key observation is to measure the maximum energy of accelerated particles correctly. It is important to reduce the pile-up events, in order to measure the correct maximum energy. The new developed detector for the high-count rate environment consists of the double-sided silicon strip detector (DSSD) and the readout Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chips VA32TA, made by IDEA. The performance of the new DSSD system for charged particles was tested using proton beams with an energy of 6 MeV from the medium-energy accelerator in the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba (HIMAC) of the National Institute for Radiological Science. The result is that the new DSSD system works well and has high performance in detecting not only X-rays, but also charged particles. It is certain that this new DSSD system can measure the correct energy of incident particles in high-count rate environments using the accelerator.
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