Our previous studies showed that the fragmentation cross sections of gold nuclei interacting in
hydrogen have large variations between the values measured at 0.9 and 10.6 GeV/n, which has very
significant implications on calculations of the propagation of the heaviest UH cosmic ray nuclei,
such as Pb and Pt We have now completed a series of runs at the Brookhaven AGS using beams of
gold nuclei of intermediate energy. The data from these runs will allow us to establish the excitation
functions for these cross sections in a wide range of targets and hence model propagation more
accurately than hitherto. In addition we will be able to study the energy dependence of nuclear
charge pickup, electromagnetic dissociation and fission. Beams of gold nuclei with seven energies
between 4.0 and 0.9 Ge V /n were studied interacting in targets ranging in mass from hydrogen to lead. We will present data on the cross sections derived from several of these beams and discuss
some of the implications
