The silicon matrix as a charge detector in the ATIC experiment

V. I. Zatsepin, Lomonosov Moscow State University
J. H. Adams, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
H. S. Ahn, University of Maryland, College Park
G. L. Bashindzhagyan, Louisiana State University
K. E. Batkov, Lomonosov Moscow State University
J. Chang, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
M. Christl, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
A. R. Fazely, Southern University and A&M College
O. Ganel, Southern University and A&M College
R. M. Gunasingha, Southern University and A&M College
T. G. Guzik, Louisiana State University
J. Isbert, Louisiana State University
K. C. Kim, University of Maryland, College Park
E. N. Kouznetsov, Lomonosov Moscow State University
M. I. Panasyuk, Lomonosov Moscow State University
A. D. Panov, Lomonosov Moscow State University
W. K.H. Schmidt, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
E. S. Seo, University of Maryland, College Park
N. V. Sokolskaya, Lomonosov Moscow State University
J. Z. Wang, University of Maryland, College Park
J. P. Wefel, Louisiana State University
J. Wu, University of Maryland, College Park

Abstract

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) was built for series of long-duration balloon flights in Antarctica. Its main goal is to measure energy spectra of cosmic ray nuclei from protons up to iron nuclei over a wide energy range from 30 GeV up to 100 TeV. The ATIC balloon experiment had its first, test flight that lasted for 16 days from 28 December 2000 to 13 January 2001 around the continent. The ATIC spectrometer consists of a fully active BGO calorimeter, scintillator hodoscopes and a silicon matrix. The silicon matrix, consisting of 4480 pixels, was used as a charge detector in the experiment. About 25 million cosmic ray events were detected during the flight. In the paper, the charge spectrum obtained with the silicon matrix is analyzed. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.