Isotopes of Cosmic Ray Elements from Neon to Nickel

Abstract

We are reporting here on the results obtained from a balloon exposure of a cosmic ray detector flown in 1977. This detector, described elsewhere, Gilman and Waddington (1975), Young (1979), measures elemental charge from scintillation and Cherenkov signals and mass from Cherenkov and total energy determined from a measure of residual range in nuclear emulsion. The charge resolution obtained ranged from 0.19 to 0.21 charge units between neon and nickel. This resolution was sufficient to ensure that all but a few percent of the nuclei were correctly identified, even for those elements of low abundance that have neighbors with high abundances, such as Cl or Al. The mass resolution obtained for those nuclei that stopped in the emulsions ranged from 0.40 to 0.70 amu for A between 20 and 60 amu. This was not adequate to uniquely resolve neighboring mass peaks in many cases, but was adequate to draw a number of conclusions regarding many of the more abundant elements.