The Search for Supernovae Signatures in an Ice Core

Details The Search for Supernovae Signatures in an Ice Core The Search for Supernovae Signatures in an Ice Core

Oct 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002aps..dnp.gf009c&link_type=abstract

American Physical Society, 2002 Fall Meeting of the Division of Nuclear , abstract #GF.009

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

It has been proposed that ice cores may preserve detectable enhancements of some terrestrially rare, radioisotopes, ^10Be, ^26Al, ^36Cl, resulting from a near Earth, type II supernova [1]. A simple model is developed and calculations are presented to estimate the number of grains with ^26Al enhancements that could be deposited per cm^2 on the Earth by a type II supernova. We describe the search for supernova grains that may possess ^26Al enhancements amongst grains filtered from the 308.5m Guliya ice core recovered from the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau in China [2]. We have obtained Guliya grain samples from the epochs corresponding to previously discovered ^10Be and ^36Cl enhancements at 35ky and 60ky as well as ˜1-4ky samples surrounding the time periods 25ky, 55ky, 68ky. Additionally, we obtained a sample that spans the time period 2-10ky. The process of identifying potential supernova grains amongst their terrestrial cousins employs a procedure developed at the University of Chicago for detecting interstellar grains in meteoritic samples [3]. We report the identification of the potential supernova grains, CaAl_12O_19, Al_2O_3, and MgAl_2O4 in the samples. This work is supported in part by National Science Foundation grant PHY-9901241. [1] Ellis, J., Fields, B. D., Schramm, D. N. Astrophys. J., 470: 1227, 1996. [2] Thompson, L. G. et al. Science, 276: 1821, 1997. [3] Amari, S., Lewis, R.S., Anders, E. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 58: 459, 1994.

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