Properties of a New Group of Cosmic Nuclei: Results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on Sodium, Aluminum, and Nitrogen

(AMS Collaboration), Liqiu Wang

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

27 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We report the properties of sodium (Na) and aluminum (Al) cosmic rays in the rigidity range 2.15 GV to 3.0 TV based on 0.46 million sodium and 0.51 million aluminum nuclei collected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment on the International Space Station. We found that Na and Al, together with nitrogen (N), belong to a distinct cosmic ray group. In this group, we observe that, similar to the N flux, both the Na flux and Al flux are well described by the sums of a primary cosmic ray component (proportional to the silicon flux) and a secondary cosmic ray component (proportional to the fluorine flux). The fraction of the primary component increases with rigidity for the N, Na, and Al fluxes and becomes dominant at the highest rigidities. The Na/Si and Al/Si abundance ratios at the source, 0.036±0.003 for Na/Si and 0.103±0.004 for Al/Si, are determined independent of cosmic ray propagation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number021101
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume127
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 9 Jul 2021

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Properties of a New Group of Cosmic Nuclei: Results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on Sodium, Aluminum, and Nitrogen'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this