Estimation of the energy spectrum of cosmic ray electrons at the atmospheric depth (3.8–7.4)g.cm−2

Abstract

Analytical calculations have been done to estimate the energy spectra of the secondary electrons originated from the decay of charged and neutral pions initiated on the upper atmosphere from the primary nucleon–air interactions in the energy range (4–100) GeV. The calculations are valid up to an atmospheric depth of about (3.8–7.4) g.cm−2. The derived results are compared with the observed electron fluxes available from the balloon flight experiments of MASS2, HEAT, magnetic spectrometer system of Golden et al., instrument using scintillating fibers of Nishimura et al., and BETS.