Given the good performances in terms of geometrical acceptance and energy resolution, calorimeters are the best suited detectors to measure high energy cosmic rays directly in space. However, in ...order to exploit this potential, the design of calorimeters must be carefully optimized to take into account all limitations related to space missions, due mainly to the mass of the experimental apparatus. CaloCube is a three years R&D project, approved and financed by INFN in 2014, aiming to optimize the design of a space-borne calorimeter by the use of a cubic, homogeneous and isotropic geometry. In order to maximize detector performances with respect to the total mass of the apparatus, comparative studies on different scintillating materials, different sizes of crystals and different spacings among them have been performed making use of Monte Carlo simulations. In parallel to this activity, several prototypes instrumented with CsI:Tl cubic crystals have been constructed and tested with particle beams (muons, electrons, protons and ions). Both simulations and prototypes showed that the CaloCube design leads to a good particle energy resolution (< 2% for electromagnetic showers, < 40% for hadronic showers) and a good effective geometric factor (> 3:5 m2 sr for electromagnetic showers, > 2:5 m2 sr for hadronic showers). Thanks to these performances, in 5 years of operation it would be possible to measure the ux of electrons+positrons up to some tens of TeV and the uxes of protons and nuclei up to some units of PeV/nucleon, hence extending these measurements by at least one order of magnitude in energy compared to the experiments currently operating in space.
The CALorimetric Electron Telescope CALET is collecting science data on the International Space Station since October 2015 with excellent and continuous performance. Energy is measured with a deep ...homogeneous calorimeter (1.2 nuclear interaction lengths, 27 radiation lengths) preceded by an imaging pre-shower (3 radiation lengths, 1mm granularity) providing tracking and
electron/proton discrimination. Two independent sub-systems identify the charge
of the incident particle from proton to iron and above (
40). CALET measures the cosmic-ray electron + positron flux up to 20 TeV, gamma rays up to 10 TeV, and nuclei up to the PeV scale. In this paper, we report the on-orbit performance of the instrument and summarize the main results obtained during the first 5 years of operation, including the electron + positron energy spectrum and the individual spectra of protons, heavier nuclei and iron. Solar modulation and gamma-ray observations are also concisely reported, as well as transient phenomena and the search for gravitational wave counterparts.
We present measurements of the relative abundances of cosmic-ray nuclei in the energy range of 500-3980 GeV/nucleon from the second flight of the Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass balloon-borne ...experiment. Particle energy was determined using a sampling tungsten/scintillating-fiber calorimeter, while particle charge was identified precisely with a dual-layer silicon charge detector installed for this flight. The resulting element ratios C/O, N/O, Ne/O, Mg/O, Si/O, and Fe/O at the top of atmosphere are 0.919 {+-} 0.123{sup stat} {+-} 0.030{sup syst}, 0.076 {+-} 0.019{sup stat} {+-} 0.013{sup syst}, 0.115 {+-} 0.031{sup stat} {+-} 0.004{sup syst}, 0.153 {+-} 0.039{sup stat} {+-} 0.005{sup syst}, 0.180 {+-} 0.045{sup stat} {+-} 0.006{sup syst}, and 0.139 {+-} 0.043{sup stat} {+-} 0.005{sup syst}, respectively, which agree with measurements at lower energies. The source abundance of N/O is found to be 0.054 {+-} 0.013{sup stat} {+-} 0.009{sup syst+0.010esc} {sub -0.017}. The cosmic-ray source abundances are compared to local Galactic (LG) abundances as a function of first ionization potential and as a function of condensation temperature. At high energies the trend that the cosmic-ray source abundances at large ionization potential or low condensation temperature are suppressed compared to their LG abundances continues. Therefore, the injection mechanism must be the same at TeV/nucleon energies as at the lower energies measured by HEAO-3, CRN, and TRACER. Furthermore, the cosmic-ray source abundances are compared to a mixture of 80% solar system abundances and 20% massive stellar outflow (MSO) as a function of atomic mass. The good agreement with TIGER measurements at lower energies confirms the existence of a substantial fraction of MSO material required in the {approx}TeV per nucleon region.
The CALET (CALorimetric Electron Telescope) space experiment, which is currently conducting direct cosmic-ray observations onboard the International Space Station (ISS), is an all-calorimetric ...instrument optimized for cosmic-ray electron measurements with capability to measure hadrons and gamma-rays. Since the start of observation in October 2015, smooth and continuous operations have taken place. In this paper, we will give a brief summary of the CALET observations ranging from charged cosmic rays, gamma-rays, to space weather, while focusing on the energy spectra of electrons and protons.
The CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) is an astroparticle physics experiment installed on the International Space Station since August 2015. The CALET mission was conceived to address several ...outstanding questions of high-energy astroparticle physics, like indirect detection of dark matter, the origin of cosmic rays (CRs), their mechanisms of acceleration and galactic propagation, the presence of possible nearby astrophysical CR sources. That can be achieved by precise measurements of the fluxes of CR electrons and gamma-rays up to the unexplored region above 1 TeV, and the energy spectra and composition of CR nuclei from a few tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV. In order to perform these observations, the instrument combines a thick total absorption PWO crystal calorimeter for energy measurement, a scintillator hodoscope for charge identi cation and thin imaging tungsten-scintillating fiber calorimeter providing accurate particle tracking and complementary charge measurement.
In this paper, we will present an overview of the main CALET results based on the data collected in the first three years of the mission.
Particle detector prototypes, equipped with Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) and readout by dedicated front-end electronics, were tested with beams of fully ionized nuclei from boron (Z=5) to nickel ...(Z=28) with a kinetic energy ∼1GeV/amu, at the Fragment Separator (FRS) of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt. The tested instruments included prototypes of Cherenkov and scintillation hodoscopes designed for cosmic-ray experiments in space or in the upper atmosphere. In this paper, we summarize the results from the analysis of the beam tests data and of dedicated laboratory tests to characterize the response of the photosensors, the front-end electronics and the performance of the prototypal detectors.
► Performance of detectors readout by Silicon Photomultipliers. ► Saturation of SiPM response with heavy nuclei. ► Charge measurement of fully stripped high Z nuclei with scintillators and Cherenkov radiators.
Homogeneous and isotropic calorimetry for space experiments Mori, N.; Adriani, O.; Basti, A. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
12/2013, Letnik:
732
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Calorimetry plays an essential role in experiments observing high energy gamma and cosmic rays in space. The observational capabilities are mainly limited by the geometrical dimensions and the mass ...of the calorimeter. Since deployable mass depends on the design of the detector and the total mass of the payload, it is important to optimize the geometrical acceptance of the calorimeter for rare events, its granularity for particle identification, and its absorption depth for the measurement of the particle energy. A design of a calorimeter that could simultaneously optimize these characteristics assuming a mass limit of about 1.6t has been studied. As a result, a homogeneous calorimeter instrumented with cesium iodide (CsI) crystals was chosen as the best compromise given the total mass constraint. The most suitable geometry found is cubic and isotropic, so as to detect particles arriving from every direction in space, thus maximizing the acceptance; granularity is obtained by filling the cubic volume with small cubic CsI crystals. The total radiation length in any direction is very large, and allows for optimal electromagnetic particle identification and energy measurement, while the interaction length is at least sufficient to allow a precise reconstruction of hadronic showers. Optimal values for the size of the crystals and spacing among them have been studied. Two prototypes have been constructed and preliminary tests with high energy ion and muon beams are reported.
The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) instrument Ahn, H.S.; Allison, P.; Bagliesi, M.G. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
09/2007, Letnik:
579, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) experiment is designed to investigate high-energy (10
12∼10
15
eV) cosmic rays over the elemental range from hydrogen to iron (1⩽
Z⩽26), through a series of ...long balloon flights. Originally planned to be flown on the first of the new Ultra Long Duration Balloons (ULDB) being developed by NASA, the CREAM instrument was launched as a Long Duration Balloon (LDB) payload from McMurdo Station, Antarctica on December 16, 2004 and flew for a record-breaking 42 days. A second CREAM flight one year later lasted 28 days. The CREAM design is unique in that it obtains two independent energy measurements using a tungsten/scintillator sampling calorimeter and a Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) with up to four independent charge measurements of incident particles using a novel Timing-based scintillator Charge Detector (TCD), a plastic Cherenkov Detector (CD), scintillating fiber hodoscopes, and a Silicon Charge Detector (SCD). The energy limits are determined by trigger efficiency and telemetry bandwidth at the low end and by statistics at the high end.
A large area silicon array for the next generation of space-based experiments has been designed to determine, via multiple dE/dx measurements, the electric charge of cosmic radiation. The instrument ...can achieve an excellent charge discrimination, thus allowing to assess the elemental composition of charged cosmic rays at relativistic energies. Pairs of silicon sensors segmented into pixels were tested with a beam of fully ionized nuclei from boron to nickel (Z=28) with a kinetic energy of ∼1GeV/amu, at the Fragment Separator (FRS) of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt. The response of the sensors to different nuclear species was accurately characterized. The results of the beam test clearly show that a double-layered silicon array can achieve single-element separation with a resolution close to 0.2 electron charge units, in the whole interval of atomic number Z under test.
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