Speaker
Description
Recent discoveries of new features in Galactic cosmic-ray fluxes emphasize the importance of understanding the propagation of cosmic rays. HELIX (High Energy Light Isotope eXperiment) is designed to improve the measurements of light cosmic-ray isotopes, including the propagation clock isotope $^{10}\mathrm{Be}$ and stable secondary isotope $^{9}\mathrm{Be}$, which will be essential to study the propagation of the cosmic rays. The magnetic spectrometer of HELIX consists of a 1 Tesla superconducting magnet containing a high-resolution gas drift chamber as a tracking detector and two velocity measuring detectors: a time-of-flight detector and a ring-imaging Cherenkov detector. While the HELIX instrument can measure the fluxes of the light isotopes from protons (Z=1) up to neon (Z=10), it is optimized to study the flux of beryllium isotopes from 0.2 GeV/n to beyond 3 GeV/n with a sufficient mass resolution to discriminate between $^{10}\mathrm{Be}$ and $^{9}\mathrm{Be}$. In this talk, I will review the scientific goals and the design of the instrument and report its current status and project plans.
Keywords
cosmic-ray; cosmic-ray isotopes; balloon experiment; cosmic-ray propagation; magnetic spectrometer
| Subcategory | Experimental Methods & Instrumentation |
|---|---|
| Collaboration | other (fill field below) |
| other Collaboration | HELIX Collaboration |
