Abundance of actinides in cosmic radiation

Charge fragmentation in cosmic radiation – and the question of physical anomalons

Data analysis is carried out for four detector stacks composed of passive Lexan polycarbonate detectors exposed in space by the Ultra Heavy Cosmic Ray Experiment on board NASA’s Long Duration Exposure Facility. Scanning and analysis of the 0.21 m2 detector area resulted in the finding of 72 ultra heavy (68 ≤ Z ≤ 96) cosmic ray nuclei. About 15% of the cosmic ray nuclei show charge fragmentation within the detector stack of 5.6 g × cm–2. A detailed analysis of these fragmented cosmic ray nuclei is presented, including a discussion within the context of “physical anomalons”. This last term, describing a sub-set of all anomalon phenomena, is defined in the text.

Cosmic-Ray Database Update: Ultra-High Energy, Ultra-Heavy, and Antinuclei Cosmic-Ray Data (CRDB v4.0)

We present an update on CRDB, the cosmic-ray database for charged species. CRDB is based on MySQL, queried and sorted by jquery and table-sorter libraries, and displayed via PHP web pages through the AJAX protocol. We review the modifications made on the structure and outputs of the database since the first release (Maurin et al., 2014). For this update, the most important feature is the inclusion of ultra-heavy nuclei (Z>30), ultra-high energy nuclei (from 1015 to 1020 eV), and limits on antinuclei fluxes (Z≤−1 for A>1); more than 100 experiments, 350 publications, and 40,000 data points are now available in CRDB. We also revisited and simplified how users can retrieve data and submit new ones. For questions and requests, please contact crdb@lpsc.in2p3.fr.