6 research outputs found
Charge Measurement of Cosmic Ray Nuclei with the Plastic Scintillator Detector of DAMPE
One of the main purposes of the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is to
measure the cosmic ray nuclei up to several tens of TeV or beyond, whose origin
and propagation remains a hot topic in astrophysics. The Plastic Scintillator
Detector (PSD) on top of DAMPE is designed to measure the charges of cosmic ray
nuclei from H to Fe and serves as a veto detector for discriminating gamma-rays
from charged particles. We propose in this paper a charge reconstruction
procedure to optimize the PSD performance in charge measurement. Essentials of
our approach, including track finding, alignment of PSD, light attenuation
correction, quenching and equalization correction are described detailedly in
this paper after a brief description of the structure and operational principle
of the PSD. Our results show that the PSD works very well and almost all the
elements in cosmic rays from H to Fe are clearly identified in the charge
spectrum.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure
New calculations of α-decay half-lives by the Viola-Seaborg formula
The Viola-Seaborg formula is a well-known formula for α-decay half-lives of heavy nuclei. In this work we obtain new parameters of this formula through a least-square fit to even-even nuclei between Z = 84 and Z = 110 with N greater than 126. On average, the formula can reproduce the half-lives of heavy even-even nuclei within a factor of 1.3. The formula with new parameters works well for the superheavy region which is a hot topic of nuclear physics. The numerical results from the formula are compared with those from the cluster model
Observations of Forbush Decreases of Cosmic-Ray Electrons and Positrons with the Dark Matter Particle Explorer
The Forbush decrease (FD) represents the rapid decrease of the intensities of charged particles accompanied with the coronal mass ejections or high-speed streams from coronal holes. It has been mainly explored with the ground-based neutron monitor network, which indirectly measures the integrated intensities of all species of cosmic rays by counting secondary neutrons produced from interaction between atmospheric atoms and cosmic rays. The space-based experiments can resolve the species of particles but the energy ranges are limited by the relatively small acceptances except for the most abundant particles like protons and helium. Therefore, the FD of cosmic-ray electrons and positrons have just been investigated by the PAMELA experiment in the low-energy range (<5 GeV) with limited statistics. In this paper, we study the FD event that occurred in 2017 September with the electron and positron data recorded by the Dark Matter Particle Explorer. The evolution of the FDs from 2 GeV to 20 GeV with a time resolution of 6 hr are given. We observe two solar energetic particle events in the time profile of the intensity of cosmic rays, the earlier, and weaker, one has not been shown in the neutron monitor data. Furthermore, both the amplitude and recovery time of fluxes of electrons and positrons show clear energy dependence, which is important in probing the disturbances of the interplanetary environment by the coronal mass ejections