Identifying Galactic Cosmic Ray Origins with Super-TIGER

Abstract

Super-TIGER (Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder) is a new long-duration balloon-borne instrument designed to test and clarify an emerging model of cosmic-ray origins and models for atomic processes by which nuclei are selected for acceleration. A sensitive test of the origin of cosmic rays is the measurement of ultra heavy elemental abundances (Z 2". 30). Super-TIGER is a large-area (5 m2) instrument designed to measure the abundances of elements in the interval 30 :<; Z:<; 42 with individual-element resolution and high statistical precision, and make exploratory measurements through Z=60. It will also measure with high statistical accuracy the energy spectra of the more abundant elements in the interval 14 :<; Z :<; 30 at energies 0.8 :<; E:<; 10 GeV/nucleon. These spectra will give a sensitive test of the hypothesis that microquasars or other sources could superpose spectral features on the otherwise smooth energy spectra previously measured with less statistical accuracy. Super-TIGER builds on the heritage of the smaller TIGER, which produced the first well-resolved measurements of elemental abundances of the elements s1Ga, s2Ge, and 34Se. We present the Super-TIGER design, schedule, and progress to date, and discuss the relevance of UH measurements to cosmic-ray origins.

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