No Arabic abstract
Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory(LHAASO) is a composite cosmic ray observatory consisting of three detector arrays: kilometer square array (KM2A) which includes the electromagnetic detector array and muon detector array, water Cherenkov detector array (WCDA) and wide field of view Cherenkov telescope array (WFCTA). One of the main scientific objectives of LHAASO is to precisely measure the cosmic rays energy spectrum of individual components from 1014 eV to 1018 eV. The hybrid observation will be employed by LHAASO experiment, in which the lateral and longitudinal distributions of the extensive air shower can be observed simultaneously. Thus many kinds of parameters can be used for primary nuclei identification. In this paper, high purity cosmic ray simulation samples of light nuclei component are obtained through Multi-Variable Analysis. The apertures of 1/4 LHAASO array for pure proton and mixed proton and helium (H&He) samples are 900 m2Sr and 1800 m2Sr respectively. A prospect of proton and H&He spectra from 100 TeV to 4 PeV is discussed.
The measurement of cosmic ray energy spectra, in particular for individual species, is an essential approach in finding their origin. Locating the knees of the spectra is an important part of the approach and has yet to be achieved. Here we report a measurement of the mixed Hydrogen and Helium spectrum using the combination of the ARGO-YBJ experiment and of a prototype Cherenkov telescope for the LHAASO experiment. A knee feature at 640+/-87 TeV, with a clear steepening of the spectrum, is observed. This gives fundamental inputs to galactic cosmic ray acceleration models.
Precision measurements of the positron component in the cosmic radiation provide important information about the propagation of cosmic rays and the nature of particle sources in our Galaxy. The satellite-borne experiment PAMELA has been used to make a new measurement of the cosmic-ray positron flux and fraction that extends previously published measurements up to 300 GeV in kinetic energy. The combined measurements of the cosmic-ray positron energy spectrum and fraction provide a unique tool to constrain interpretation models. During the recent solar minimum activity period from July 2006 to December 2009 approximately 24500 positrons were observed. The results cannot be easily reconciled with purely secondary production and additional sources of either astrophysical or exotic origin may be required.
The mass composition of high energy cosmic rays depends on their production, acceleration, and propagation. The study of cosmic ray composition can therefore reveal hints of the origin of these particles. At the South Pole, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is capable of measuring two components of cosmic ray air showers in coincidence: the electromagnetic component at high altitude (2835 m) using the IceTop surface array, and the muonic component above ~1 TeV using the IceCube array. This unique detector arrangement provides an opportunity for precision measurements of the cosmic ray energy spectrum and composition in the region of the knee and beyond. We present the results of a neural network analysis technique to study the cosmic ray composition and the energy spectrum from 1 PeV to 30 PeV using data recorded using the 40-string/40-station configuration of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.
The ARGO-YBJ experiment is a full-coverage air shower detector located at the Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Observatory (Tibet, Peoples Republic of China, 4300 m a.s.l.). The high altitude, combined with the full-coverage technique, allows the detection of extensive air showers in a wide energy range and offer the possibility of measuring the cosmic ray proton plus helium spectrum down to the TeV region, where direct balloon/space-borne measurements are available. The detector has been in stable data taking in its full configuration from November 2007 to February 2013. In this paper the measurement of the cosmic ray proton plus helium energy spectrum is presented in the region 3-300 TeV by analyzing the full collected data sample. The resulting spectral index is $gamma = -2.64 pm 0.01$. These results demonstrate the possibility of performing an accurate measurement of the spectrum of light elements with a ground based air shower detector.
We report on a measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum by the Telescope Array Low-Energy Extension (TALE) air fluorescence detector. The TALE air fluorescence detector is also sensitive to the Cherenkov light produced by shower particles. Low energy cosmic rays, in the PeV energy range, are detectable by TALE as Cherenkov Events. Using these events, we measure the energy spectrum from a low energy of $sim 2$ PeV to an energy greater than 100 PeV. Above 100 PeV TALE can detect cosmic rays using air fluorescence. This allows for the extension of the measurement to energies greater than a few EeV. In this paper, we will describe the detector, explain the technique, and present results from a measurement of the spectrum using $sim 1000$ hours of observation. The observed spectrum shows a clear steepening near $10^{17.1}$ eV, along with an ankle-like structure at $10^{16.2}$ eV. These features present important constraints on galactic cosmic rays origin and propagation models. The feature at $10^{17.1}$ eV may also mark the end of the galactic cosmic rays flux and the start of the transition to extra-galactic sources.