A measurement of the absolute energy spectra of galactic cosmic rays during the 1976–77 solar minimum

Abstract. The radiation dose from galactic cosmic rays during a manned mission to Mars is expected to be comparable to the allowable limit for space shuttle astronauts. Most of this dose would be due to galactic cosmic rays with energies• i GeV nucleon -1, with important contributions from heavy nuclei in spite of their low abundance relative to H and He. Using instruments on NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft, we have made the most statistically precise measurements to date of the solar minimum energy spectra of cosmic ray nuclei with charge Z -4-28 in the energy range •0 40-500 MeV nucleon -1. We compare these measurements obtained during the 1997-1998 solar minimum period with measurements from previous solar minima and with models of the near-Earth radiation environment currently used to perform shielding and dose calculations. We find that the cosmic ray heavy-element spectra measured by ACE are as much as 20% higher than previously published solar minimum measurements. We also find significant differences between the ACE measurements and the predictions of available models of the near-Earth radiation environme,nt, suggesting that these models need revision. We describe a cosmic ray interstellar propagation and solar modulation model that provides an improved fit to the ACE measurements compared to radiation environment models currently in use.

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

Maurin

Dembinski

González

et al. 2020

Universe

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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.

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A measurement of the absolute energy spectra of galactic cosmic rays during the 1976–77 solar minimum

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Radiation biology

Radiation biology

Solar minimum spectra of galactic cosmic rays and their implications for models of the near‐Earth radiation environment

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

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