Speaker
M. Wiedenbeck
(JPL/Caltech)
Description
The Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer (CRIS) on NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft has been making precise measurements of cosmic-ray elemental and isotopic composition and energy spectra for nearly 18 years. This instrument uses the dE/dx versus total energy technique to identify nuclei that stop in thick stacks of silicon solid-state detectors and to measure their energy. The energy range covered for these stopping particles extends up to ~280 MeV/nuc for O and ~570 MeV/nuc for Fe. We have developed a new technique for identifying particles that penetrate the entire detector stack that relies on a combination of the total energy deposited in the stack and the change of dE/dx from the front to the back of the stack. This technique allows us to extend energy spectra for cosmic-ray elements to higher energies and can be used for bridging the energy gap between the CRIS stopping-particle spectra and measurements made in low-Earth orbit by instruments such as HEAO-C2, PAMELA, and AMS-02. We will describe the technique, show some applications to extending the energy limit of the CRIS spectra, and discuss the limitations on the energy coverage that can be achieved.
| Collaboration | -- not specified -- |
|---|---|
| Registration number following "ICRC2015-I/" | 703 |
Primary author
M. Wiedenbeck
(JPL/Caltech)
Co-authors
A. Cummings
(Caltech)
A. Davis
(Caltech)
A. Labrador
(Caltech)
E. Christian
(NASA/GSFC)
E. Stone
(Caltech)
G. de Nolfo
(NASA/GSFC)
M. Israel
(Washington Univ.)
R. Leske
(Caltech)
R. Mewaldt
(Caltech)
T. von Rosenvinge
(NASA/GSFC)
W. Binns
(Washington Univ.)
