Production of cosmogenic nuclides in meteoroids: accelerator experiments and model calculations to decipher the cosmic ray record in extraterrestrial matter

Abstract

Accelerator experiments at low and medium energies provide a basis for the development of models describing the production of cosmogenic nuclides by solar and galactic cosmic ray particles. Here, recent efforts to understand cosmogenic nuclide production are outlined taking their production in meteoroids as an example. Thin-target and thick-target experiments are described, by which the relevant cross sections are measured and in which the isotropic irradiation of meteoroids in space is simulated under completely controlled conditions. Thin-target and thick-target data are combined to develop and to validate model calculations of cosmogenic nuclide production rates by solar and galactic cosmic ray particles. The model calculations provide the basis to interpret the observed abundances of cosmogenic nuclides with respect to the exposure history of the irradiated matter and to the history of the cosmic radiation itself.