51. Precision Measurement of Cosmic-Ray Nitrogen and its Primary and Secondary Components with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station.
- Author
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Aguilar M, Ali Cavasonza L, Alpat B, Ambrosi G, Arruda L, Attig N, Aupetit S, Azzarello P, Bachlechner A, Barao F, Barrau A, Barrin L, Bartoloni A, Basara L, Başeğmez-du Pree S, Battarbee M, Battiston R, Becker U, Behlmann M, Beischer B, Berdugo J, Bertucci B, Bindel KF, Bindi V, de Boer W, Bollweg K, Bonnivard V, Borgia B, Boschini MJ, Bourquin M, Bueno EF, Burger J, Burger WJ, Cai XD, Capell M, Caroff S, Casaus J, Castellini G, Cervelli F, Chang YH, Chen AI, Chen GM, Chen HS, Chen Y, Cheng L, Chou HY, Choumilov E, Choutko V, Chung CH, Clark C, Clavero R, Coignet G, Consolandi C, Contin A, Corti C, Creus W, Crispoltoni M, Cui Z, Dadzie K, Dai YM, Datta A, Delgado C, Della Torre S, Demirköz MB, Derome L, Di Falco S, Dimiccoli F, Díaz C, von Doetinchem P, Dong F, Donnini F, Duranti M, Egorov A, Eline A, Eronen T, Feng J, Fiandrini E, Fisher P, Formato V, Galaktionov Y, Gallucci G, García-López RJ, Gargiulo C, Gast H, Gebauer I, Gervasi M, Ghelfi A, Giovacchini F, Gómez-Coral DM, Gong J, Goy C, Grabski V, Grandi D, Graziani M, Guo KH, Haino S, Han KC, He ZH, Heil M, Hsieh TH, Huang H, Huang ZC, Incagli M, Jia Y, Jinchi H, Kanishev K, Khiali B, Kirn T, Konak C, Kounina O, Kounine A, Koutsenko V, Kulemzin A, La Vacca G, Laudi E, Laurenti G, Lazzizzera I, Lebedev A, Lee HT, Lee SC, Leluc C, Li HS, Li JQ, Li Q, Li TX, Li ZH, Li ZY, Lin CH, Lipari P, Lippert T, Liu D, Liu H, Liu Z, Lordello VD, Lu SQ, Lu YS, Luebelsmeyer K, Luo F, Luo JZ, Lyu SS, Machate F, Mañá C, Marín J, Martin T, Martínez G, Masi N, Maurin D, Menchaca-Rocha A, Meng Q, Mikuni VM, Mo DC, Mott P, Mussolin L, Nelson T, Ni JQ, Nikonov N, Nozzoli F, Oliva A, Orcinha M, Palermo M, Palmonari F, Palomares C, Paniccia M, Pauluzzi M, Pensotti S, Perrina C, Phan HD, Picot-Clemente N, Pilo F, Plyaskin V, Pohl M, Poireau V, Quadrani L, Qi XM, Qin X, Qu ZY, Räihä T, Rancoita PG, Rapin D, Ricol JS, Rosier-Lees S, Rozhkov A, Rozza D, Sagdeev R, Schael S, Schmidt SM, Schulz von Dratzig A, Schwering G, Seo ES, Shan BS, Shi JY, Siedenburg T, Song JW, Tacconi M, Tang XW, Tang ZC, Tescaro D, Tian J, Ting SCC, Ting SM, Tomassetti N, Torsti J, Urban T, Vagelli V, Valente E, Valtonen E, Vázquez Acosta M, Vecchi M, Velasco M, Vialle JP, Wang LQ, Wang NH, Wang QL, Wang X, Wang XQ, Wang ZX, Wei CC, Wei J, Weng ZL, Whitman K, Wu H, Xiong RQ, Xu W, Yan Q, Yang M, Yang Y, Yi H, Yu YJ, Yu ZQ, Zannoni M, Zeissler S, Zhang C, Zhang F, Zhang J, Zhang JH, Zhang SW, Zhang Z, Zheng ZM, Zhuang HL, Zhukov V, Zichichi A, Zimmermann N, and Zuccon P
- Abstract
A precision measurement of the nitrogen flux with rigidity (momentum per unit charge) from 2.2 GV to 3.3 TV based on 2.2×10^{6} events is presented. The detailed rigidity dependence of the nitrogen flux spectral index is presented for the first time. The spectral index rapidly hardens at high rigidities and becomes identical to the spectral indices of primary He, C, and O cosmic rays above ∼700 GV. We observed that the nitrogen flux Φ_{N} can be presented as the sum of its primary component Φ_{N}^{P} and secondary component Φ_{N}^{S}, Φ_{N}=Φ_{N}^{P}+Φ_{N}^{S}, and we found Φ_{N} is well described by the weighted sum of the oxygen flux Φ_{O} (primary cosmic rays) and the boron flux Φ_{B} (secondary cosmic rays), with Φ_{N}^{P}=(0.090±0.002)×Φ_{O} and Φ_{N}^{S}=(0.62±0.02)×Φ_{B} over the entire rigidity range. This corresponds to a change of the contribution of the secondary cosmic ray component in the nitrogen flux from 70% at a few GV to <30% above 1 TV.
- Published
- 2018
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