Statistics
Scientific paper
Jan 1993
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993phdt........32d&link_type=abstract
PhD Dissertation, Washington Univ. Saint Louis, MO United States
Statistics
Galactic Cosmic Rays, Spectrometers, Resolution, Balloon Flight, Cerenkov Counters, Ion Accelerators, Charged Particles, Trajectories, Scintillating Fibers, Charge Efficiency, Iron Isotopes, Cerenkov Radiation
Scientific paper
Despite advances made in determining the composition of galactic Cosmic Rays (CR), their origin is still uncertain, as is the exact mechanism for their acceleration to high energies. The relative abundances of CR iron-group isotopes are an important probe of the nature of the sources of CR, and thus constrain theories of the nucleosynthesis of matter occurring there. The time-delay between the nucleosynthesis of CR source material and its acceleration to high energies can also be measured using CR isotope abundances. The Scintillating Optical Fiber Isotope Experiment (SOFIE) is a Cerenkov-dE/dx-range experiment designed to study the isotopic composition of heavy CR aboard a high-altitude balloon. The first flight of SOFIE, in 1988, did not provide scientific data because of problems with newly developed detectors. This thesis describes improvements that have been made in the design of the instrument which enable it to achieve the high resolution required to resolve heavy isotopes in the CR. Also described is a new study which predicts the mass resolution of the instrument at silicon and iron, and the results of an accelerator calibration which verifies the functionality of the instrument and the mass resolution predictions. The low abundance of iron-group isotopes in the CR makes their measurement especially difficult. SOFIE uses new detectors incorporating scintillating optical fiber technology to measure charged particle trajectories, and to image their tracks in the range detector. These detectors make it possible to combine high resolution and high collecting power in the same instrument. In December, 1990, we calibrated SOFIE at the LBL Bevalac heavy ion accelerator. An analysis of the calibration data is presented, including charge resolution, resolution and efficiency of the trajectory detectors, and mass resolution at silicon and iron. We find the mass resolution to be approximately 0.25 amu at silicon and approximately 0.4 amu at iron. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions, and are slightly better than the resolution achieved by any other CR iron isotope experiment yet flown. A long-duration balloon flight of SOFIE in Antarctica would also result in an order of magnitude better statistics.
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