A satellite measurement of the relative abundance of relativistic cosmic ray LH nuclei

Abstract

A Cerenkov–scintillator telescope was flown on the low altitude polar orbiting OV1-10 satellite. Charge resolution was accomplished in the Z = 9 to 17 range for energies above ~.6 BeV/nucleon. The data indicate an even–odd ratio for the integral energy spectra of these nuclei which decreases from 6 to 3 as the threshold increases from.6 to about 3 BeV/nucleon. This behavior is shown to be consistent with a positive energy dependence of path length. The measurements are presented and compared with the other published satellite results and one balloon experiment.