Measurements of cosmic-ray secondary nuclei at high energies with the first flight of the CREAM balloon-borne experiment

Abstract

We present new measurements of heavy cosmic-ray nuclei at high energies performed during the first flight of the balloon-borne cosmic-ray experiment Cosmic-Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM). This instrument uses multiple charge detectors and a transition radiation detector to provide the first high accuracy measurements of the relative abundances of elements from boron to oxygen up to energies around 1 TeV/n. The data agree with previous measurements at lower energies and show a relatively steep decline (∼ E −0.6 to E −0.5) at high energies. They further show the source abundance of nitrogen relative to oxygen is ∼10% in the TeV/n region.