Cosmic rays at 30,000 feet
Abstract
A discussion is given of the data obtained in a recent series of flights of a B-29 airplane at altitudes up to 40,000 ft., in which a cloud chamber, actuated by Geiger counters, was operated in a magnetic field of 7500 gauss. The frequency of occurrence of single particles and electron showers at elevations of 800 ft., 14,100 ft., and 30,000 ft. is compared. Examples of heavily ionizing particles and of nuclear disintegrations are discussed. Direct measurements of the energies of cosmic-ray particles at 30,000 ft. are compared with similar measurements made at sea level. These measurements indicate that up to one-third of the particles which occur singly in the chamber, in the momentum range up to 107 gauss-cm, may consist of protons and the remainder of mesotrons, in contrast to sea level observations which show that protons are there present in only negligible numbers.
Additional Information
©1948 The American Physical Society. The greater part of this work was carried out under Contract N6onr-102, Task Order No. 111, with the Office of Naval Research. We wish to acknowledge also our indebtedness to the U. S. Air Forces for the use of a B-29 airplane and to the U. S. Naval Bureau of Ordnance for the use of laboratory and ground facilities at the Naval Ordnance Test Station at Inyokern, California. In particular, we take pleasure in expressing our personal thanks to the many officers and men connected with the above organizations for the very willing cooperation which has made this work possible. We wish to thank Mr. A. J. Seriff for his help in making many of these measurements.Attached Files
Published - ADApr48.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 4971
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:ADArmp48
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2006-09-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
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2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field