The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) Instrument
نویسندگان
چکیده
The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) experiment is designed to investigate high energy (10 ~ 10 eV) cosmic rays over the elemental range from hydrogen to iron (1 ≤ Z ≤ 26), through a series of long balloon flights. Originally planned to be flown on the first of the new Ultra Long Duration Balloon (ULDB) being developed by NASA, the CREAM instrument was launched as a long duration balloons (LDB) payload from McMurdo Station, Antarctica on December 16, 2004 and flew for a record-breaking 42 days. A second CREAM flight one year later lasted 28 days. The CREAM design is unique in that it obtains two independent energy measurements using a tungsten/scintillator sampling calorimeter and a Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) with up to four independent charge measurements of incident particles using a novel Timing-based scintillator Charge Detector (TCD), a plastic Cherenkov Detector (CD), scintillating fiber hodoscopes, and a Silicon Charge Detector (SCD). The energy limits are determined by trigger efficiency and telemetry bandwidth at the low end and by statistics at the high end.
منابع مشابه
Measurements of cosmic-ray secondary nuclei at high energies with the first flight of the CREAM balloon-borne experiment
We present new measurements of heavy cosmic-ray nuclei at high energies performed during the first flight of the balloon-borne cosmic-ray experiment CREAM (Cosmic-Ray Energetics And Mass). This instrument uses multiple charge detectors Preprint submitted to Elsevier 12 August 2008 and a transition radiation detector to provide the first high accuracy measurements of the relative abundances of e...
متن کاملFirst measurements of cosmic-ray nuclei at high energy with CREAM
The balloon-borne cosmic-ray experiment CREAM-I (Cosmic-Ray Energetics And Mass) recently completed a successful 42-day flight during the 2004-2005 NASA/NSF/NSBF Antarctic expedition. CREAM-I combines an imaging calorimeter with charge detectors and a precision transition radiation detector (TRD). The TRD component of CREAM-I is targeted at measuring the energy of cosmic-ray particles with char...
متن کاملThe Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM) Experiment Timing Charge Detector
The cosmic ray all-particle spectrum has a small steepening of its spectral slope, or ‘knee’, near 10 eV. Changes in the nuclear composition of cosmic rays may be associated with the knee and provide clues concerning the origin of the spectral change. An ultra-long duration balloon experiment, Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM), is being constructed to measure cosmic ray elemental spectra a...
متن کاملDesign and performance in the first flight of the transition radiation detector and charge detector of the CREAM balloon instrument
The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) instrument flew on a high altitude balloon in Antarctica in 2004–2005 for a record breaking 42 days. An array of detectors was deployed to identify cosmic rays and measure their energies up to several hundred TeV. A major science goal is the measurement of secondary nuclei at high energy (produced by spallation reactions of heavier cosmic rays in the i...
متن کامل30TH INTERNATIONAL COSMIC RAY CONFERENCE The CREAM-III Calorimeter
After successful recovery of the first CREAM (Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass) instrument during the 2004/5 Antarctic campaign, the calorimeter was refurbished for a third flight, planned for December 2007. In this CREAM-III calorimeter, the optics were replaced with multi-clad fiber ribbons to enhance the light signal, and new readout electronics boards reduce noise even further than the previo...
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