A review and interpretation of recent cosmic ray beryllium isotope measurements

Beryllium-10 is of interest for cosmic ray propagation, because its radioactive decay half-life is well matched to the expected cosmic ray age. Recent beryllium isotope measurements from satellites and balloon covered an energy range from about 30 to 300 MeV/nucleon. At the lowest energies, most of the Be-10 is absent, indicating a cosmic ray lifetime of order 2 x 10 to the 7th power years and the rather low average density of 0.2 atoms/cc traversed by the cosmic rays. At higher energies, a greater propagation of Be-10 is observed, indicating a somewhat shorter lifetime. These experiments will be reviewed and then compared with a new experiment covering from 100 to 1000 MeV/nucleon. Although improved experiments will be necessary to realize the full potential of cosmic ray beryllium isotope measurements, these first results are already disclosing interesting and unexpected facts about cosmic ray acceleration and propagation

Service-Learning, the Arts, and Incarceration

This paper describes three different service-learning approaches the authors utilized in graduate art education students and incarcerated residents at a municipal jail facility. By situating our experiences within feminist theory, we analyze and unpack the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Through an analysis of teacher and student journal entries we came to see that our level of responsiveness to residents needed to increase as compared to our considerations of the university students. We came to see the significant knowledge that the residents hold about excellence in teaching and created an opportunity for the university students and ourselves to learn from the residents. We also identified three areas, breaking stereotypes, awareness of privilege, and showing empathy, that created change in the university students. We believe that service-learning in pre-service teacher preparation programs allows university students to learn from and with residents, thus helping to create more empathetic future teachers

Experiment definition and integration study for the accommodation of magnetic spectrometer payload on Spacelab/shuttle missions

A super-cooled magnetic spectrometer for a cosmic-ray experiment is considered for application in the high energy astronomical observatory which may be used on a space shuttle spacelab mission. New cryostat parameters are reported which are appropriate to shuttle mission weight and mission duration constraints. Since a super-conducting magnetic spectrometer has a magnetic fringe field, methods for shielding sensitive electronic and mechanical components on nearby experiments are described

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Floccinaucinihilipilification is one of the longest words in the English language. It is mainly used as a curiosity, and means the action or habit of estimating something as worthless. Stumbling upon words like this has always brought me a small amount of joy, and the moment I learned this word I knew it encapsulated everything this project was meant to be. The allure it held went beyond the definition, which I connected to the difficulties I experienced when beginning this creative research endeavor. I chose it thinking of the titles of many scientific research papers; they contain words that are alien unless you know them intimately, and I wanted to know this word intimately. Wielding this title like a sword, I had power simply because I learned how to pronounce it. The definition and the aura of floccinaucinihilipilification are in direct opposition to each other, existing in a strange duality. This word, as a symptom of its complexity, foreignness, and overcompensation, has authority (or at the very least a certain kind of exclusionary power). At its genesis, the project was centered around a pseudo-scientific experiment that involved a fictional ‘Achievement Program.’ In this experiment, there were three roles to play: (1) a subject to participate and be studied, (2) the scientist or researcher who was observing, and (3) the artist who was cataloging the entire project as creative research. I played all of these roles. There were thousands of hypotheses for what I might learn through this process, but of course the most interesting parts were unforeseen. As the subject, I began the experiment with an urgency and investment, I wanted to see if achievements could offset the floccinaucinihilipilification I directed towards my own life. But I grew to have a distaste for the process and the requirements that I was forced to meet. I began to detest the system that developed it (which was me). As the scientist, I felt that the data I was gathering each week would be essential to the final product. But at the end of the experiment I learned basically nothing and the data only confused me (most likely because this experiment was not designed to be scientifically sound). As the artist, I had no intentions, I was only there to discover the concepts that I most wanted to express and how to do so visually or experientially. Through developing this fictional experiment, I had hoped to show that the authority that comes with titles is a negotiable territory. The trouble was my own involvement; I had become synonymous with the project. My image was in the documentation as the subject, my conflicted feelings captured in journals, my emotional state measured based on statements that were too broad or too specific

A superconducting magnetic spectrometer for cosmic ray nuclei

Equipment specifications for balloon carried superconducting magnetic spectrometer to measure spectra of cosmic ray nuclei with charges ranging from protons to iro

Evaluation of the table Mountain Ronchi telescope for angular tracking

The performance of the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) Table Mountain telescope was evaluated to determine the potential of such an instrument for optical angular tracking. This telescope uses a Ronchi ruling to measure differential positions of stars at the meridian. The Ronchi technique is summarized and the operational features of the Table Mountain instrument are described. Results from an analytic model, simulations, and actual data are presented that characterize the telescope's current performance. For a star pair of visual magnitude 7, the differential uncertainty of a 5-min observation is about 50 nrad (10 marcsec), and tropospheric fluctuations are the dominant error source. At magnitude 11, the current differential uncertainty is approximately 800 nrad (approximately 170 marcsec). This magnitude is equivalent to that of a 2-W laser with a 0.4-m aperture transmitting to Earth from a spacecraft at Saturn. Photoelectron noise is the dominant error source for stars of visual magnitude 8.5 and fainter. If the photoelectron noise is reduced, ultimately tropospheric fluctuations will be the limiting source of error at an average level of 35 nrad (7 marcsec) for stars approximately 0.25 deg apart. Three near-term strategies are proposed for improving the performance of the telescope to the 10-nrad level: improving the efficiency of the optics, masking background starlight, and averaging tropospheric fluctuations over multiple observations

A Measurement of the Antiproton Flux in the Cosmic Rays

A balloon-borne instrument has been used to detect cosmic-ray antiprotons. These are identified topologically by the appearance of annihilation prongs in a thick lead-plate spark chamber. The initial recording of the data is enriched in potential antimatter events by a selective trigger. After a small subtraction for background, 14 identified antiprotons yield a flux of 1.7 plus or minus 0.00005 antiproton/(sq m ster sec MeV) between 130 and 320 MeV at the top of the atmosphere. When combined with higher energy antiproton flux measurements, this result indicates that the antiprotons have a spectrum whose shape is the same as that of the protons, but with a magnitude reduced by a factor of 1/3000

Research in particles and fields

Cosmic rays and astrophysical plasmas, NASA spacecraft experiment activities, and gamma rays are discussed

Research in particles and fields

The astrophysical aspects of cosmic radiation and the radiation and electromagnetic field environment of the Earth and other planets are investigated. Energetic particle and photon detector systems flown on spacecraft and balloons are used. Galactic, solar, interplanetary, and planetary energetic particles and plasmas are also studied with emphasis on precision measurements with high resolution in charge, mass, and energy