197 3ApJ. . .183L. .

81W

The Astrophysical Journal, 183:L81-L86, 1973 July IS

© 1973. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

ISOTOPIC COMPOSITION MEASUREMENTS OF COSMIC-RAY NUCLEI

WITH Z $> 10 MADE USING A NEW TECHNIQUE
W. R. Webber, J. A. Lezniak, and J. Kish
Physics Department, University of New Hampshire, Durham
Received 1973 March 12; revised 1973 May 4
ABSTRACT
We have recently measured the isotopic composition of Z ^ 10 cosmic-ray nuclei using a new
technique employing a combination of Cerenkov and total energy counters. An effective mass
resolution ~0.4 amu is obtained for particles of energy between 400 and 500 MeV per nucleon
with charge between 12 and 16. The preliminary mass distribution of nuclei with charge from
12 to 28 will be presented along with estimates of errors involved in the absolute mass assignments.
Subject headings: abundances, cosmic rays — cosmic rays
In recent years a considerable effort has been made to study the charge and isotopic
composition of primary cosmic rays. Although it is now possible to obtain the indi-
Lucite Cerenkov

L81

© American Astronomical Society • Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System

 L82 W. WEBBER, J. LEZNIAK, AND J. KISH Vol. 183

vidual charge composition out to a Z ^ 30 with some accuracy, until recently only
very crude data were available on the isotopic composition of low-Z nuclei (Dauber
1971; Simpson 1972). In this paper we report measurements of the isotopic compo-
sition of Z ^ 10 nuclei made using a new combination of detectors. The balloon-
borne telescope used for these measurements is shown in figure 1. This instrument
was flown from Fort Churchill on 1972 July 4, and remained at an altitude of 2.7 g
cm-2 for 11 hours. Particle mass and charge information is obtained simultaneously
for each particle from several combinations of elements in this telescope including
the conventional dE/dx X E mode; however, the new combination discussed in this
paper is the so-called Cerenkov X total-energy mode in which particles with energy
above the Cerenkov threshold of 320 MeV per nucleon come to rest in the following
total-energy counter. In the present telescope this can occur for particles with Z ^ 10,
and it is therefore this charge range where the Cerenkov X total-energy technique
may be applied. It can be shown that for particles which are just above the Cerenkov
threshold but which stop in the total-energy counter, the fractional mass separation
in this mode is several times larger than in the dE/dx X E mode extensively used
in previous studies in nuclear physics and cosmic rays (Webber, Lezniak, and Kish
1973). This arises because, just above the Cerenkov threshold, the magnitude the
Cerenkov light emission is a rapidly varying function of velocity; hence, if the
Cerenkov output is measured to a certain precision, the velocity will be measured to a

Fig. 2.—Calculated response of Cerenkov-total energy telescope for particles of different mass
and charge. Numbers on curves give energies in MeV per nucleon.

© American Astronomical Society • Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System

 No. 2, 1973 ISOTOPIC COMPOSITION OF COSMIC RAYS L83
much greater precision. The detailed response of this telescope is a function of the
index of refraction of the Cerenkov counter and the amount of material in the total-
energy counter. In figure 2 we show the expected response for particles of different
charge and mass as calculated for our particular telescope. It is observed that the
mass separation is as large as the charge separation in this mode and that the isotope
lines of nearby charges overlap. It is therefore necessary to first identify the charge
independently for example from analysis of the events in the dE/dx X E mode. The
events of each charge are then plotted on a two-dimensional Cerenkov X total-energy
matrix, a sample of which is shown in figure 3. The events on this matrix are those that
satisfy the redundancy criterion 2|Si — -f S2) ^0.2. This criterion is im-
posed to remove nuclear interactions and other background events. Tests are per-
formed on the data using several redundancy limits to achieve maximum background
reduction—consistent with not removing true noninteracting particles. The limits
finally imposed are several times the FWHM of the Sx and S2 pulse-height distribu-

Fig. 3.—Observed two-dimensional matrix of events for Ca and Fe nuclei. Solid lines given
calculated response for various isotopes. Numbers on curves give energies in MeV per nucleon.

© American Astronomical Society • Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System

197 3ApJ. . .183L. .81W

L84 W. WEBBER, J. LEZNIAK, AND J. KISH Vol. 183

tions for the charges involved. The resulting distributions are believed to be virtually
background free in this charge range as is evidenced by the fact that almost no
events are observed on the dE/dx X E matrices at locations removed from the charge
lines. If the events are then summed separately for each isotope along bands parallel
to the calculated mass lines, one obtains a series of mass histograms for the cosmic
rays as shown in figure 4.
There are several sources of error in the mass identification procedure. The most
obvious error source is due to fluctuations in the output of either the Cerenkov or
the total-energy counter. The fluctuations in the Cerenkov output dominate. They
are due mainly to photoelectron statistics. The fractional fluctuation (SQ/Q) due
to this effect is measured to be 0.30 for minimum ionizing singly charged particles.
This leads to a predicted Gaussian mass resolution <r ~ ß/Z varying with energy of
between 0.1 and 0.4 amu for nuclei with Z — 12-16. The measured mass resolution
for these nuclei may be obtained from the observed mass distributions and is 0.4 dt 0.1
amu. Another important source of error originates in the location of the mass lines
themselves. Uncertainties in the internal cross-calibration of the Cerenkov, total-
energy, and dE/dx responses are believed to lead to an absolute error of ^=±=0.5 amu
for nuclei in the Z = 12-26 range. This uncertainty is independent of the statistical
one and will lead to a systematic displacement of the mass distributions. For the
purposes of obtaining the mass distribution of the heavier nuclei we have normalized
the Si mass distribution to 28Si. In other words, our normalization to 28Si may be
inaccurate to ±0.5 amu; however, relative to the normalized 28Si position the errors
in the mass assignment of the heavier nuclei are probably only a few tenths of an
amu, as is indicated by the close agreement between the predicted locations of the

AI Si

AMU AMU

Co

/ f- v> , , mfi m nnñ n,

'38 40 42 44 46
AMU AMU

Cr Fe

i/W, .r-^.W Ik
52 54 56 58 60
AMU AMU
Fig. 4.—Observed mass distributions of Mg, Al, Si, S, A, Ca, Ti, Cr, and Fe nuclei.

© American Astronomical Society • Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System

197 3ApJ. . .183L. .81W

No. 2, 1973 ISOTOPIC COMPOSITION OF COSMIC RAYS L85

mass lines for Fe for example, and the actual distributions. We have also derived a
different set of mass histograms making extreme assumptions about our calibration
errors. Under these assumptions the breakdown of Fe events becomes 53 + 54Fe = 6,
55+56+5Tpe __ 28, 58+59+6<)Fe = 20. These numbers should be compared with the
numbers in table 1 which are obtained from our “best” calibration. Further details
of the instrumental technique are discussed in Webber et al. (1973).
In table 1, we summarize the observed cosmic-ray mass distributions under 3 g cm"-2
of atmosphere. For several of the nuclei (e.g., Mg, Si, S, and Fe) these abundances
reflect mainly the source composition with interstellar fragmentation effects important
only for the rarer isotopes (see last column in table 1). The abundance ratios for
the leading isotopes of these source nuclei agree quite closely with the well-known
terrestrial abundances listed in table 1 with the exception of Fe which appears to
have comparable abundances of 54Fe, 56Fe, and 58Fe. For the remaining nuclei such
as Al, Ar, Ca, Ti, and Cr, interstellar fragmentation will dominate. Assuming the

TABLE 1
Isotopic Composition at 3 g cm—2 Depth

Predicted
Events,
Secondary
Terrestrial Production
Energy Range Abundance Only
(MeV per Events (%of (700 MeV
Isotope nucleon) Observed Charge) per nucleon)
20
22
Ne 380-400
Ne None
23 + 24 + 25Mg 386-448 27 88.8 2.41
26
Mg 2 29 11.2 0. 3.1
384-428
25 + 26A1 390-471 2 1. 4.2
27AI ... 389-461 9} 11 3.1/
27 + 28 + 29§j 406-497 31 96.9 LOl
33 1.8
30Si 404-479 2 3.1 0.8 j
31 + 32 + 33§ 412-541 15 95.8
16 1,2 2.1
34S 410-523 4.2 0.9 1
J
36+37 + 38Ar 427-565 3.8 \ 5.3
39 + 40Ar ... 424-546 } 1.5/
40
+41Ca .. 400-626 97.0
42 + 43Ca ... 437-606 15 0.6 3.6 6.9
44 + 45 + 46Ca 434-586 2.1 3.3
45 + 46X1 444-648 2.6
47 + 48 + 49X1* 440-631 14 8.1 10.9
50 + 51X1 436-615 0.2
49 + 50Cr ... 460-689 1.7
51 + 52 + 53Cr 456-672 15 12.0 14.2
54
Cr 452-656 0.5
53 + 54JTg 466-729 1S 5.8
55 + 56+57Fe 462-714 231^54 93.9
58 + 59 + 60Fe 458-699 16J 0.3

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L86 W. WEBBER, J. LEZNIAK, AND J. KISH

cosmic-ray source composition given in a previous paper (Webber, Damle, and Kish
1972), we have estimated the production of secondary nuclei in 5 g cm~2 of galactic
hydrogen using partial isotopic cross-sections calculated from the recent semi-
empherical formulation of Silberberg and Tsao (1972). This secondary production is
shown in the last column of table 1. The numbers have been adjusted to take into
account the varying energy interval widths over which each isotope is measured.
A more complete interpretation of the results is in preparation.

This work was performed under NASA grant NGR 30-002-052.

REFERENCES
Dauber, P. M., ed. 1971, Isotopic Composition of the Primary Cosmic Radiation, A Symposium
(Danish Space Research Institute).
Silberberg, R., and Tsao, C. H. 1972, Proc. 12th International Cosmic Ray Conference, Hobart, 1,
273.
Simpson, J. A. 1972, Rapporteur Paper, 12th International Cosmic Ray Conference, Hobart, un-
published.
Webber, W. R., Damle, S. V., and Kish, J. 1972, Ap. and Space Sei., 15, 245.
Webber, W. R., Lezniak, J. A., and Kish, J. 1973, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. (in press).

© American Astronomical Society • Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System