Diffusion coefficient and acceleration spectrum from direct measurements of charged cosmic ray nuclei

We discuss the potential of different experimental configurations directly measuring charged cosmic ray nuclei at energies 100 GeV/n. Using a two-zone diffusion model for the propagation of stable cosmic rays, we generate different predictions of the primary and secondary fluxes of light nuclei. It is shown that the new detectors exploiting the long and ultra long duration balloon technology can determine the diffusion coefficient slope through the measurement of the B/C ratio, with an uncertainty of about 10-15 if systematic errors are low enough. Only satellite based detectors are able to reach very high accuracy even in case of more important systematics. Furthermore, we show that no uncertainties other than those on affect the determination of the acceleration slope , which can be studied by these apparatus through the measurement of light nuclei fluxes, thus providing valuable information on the acceleration mechanisms.