Do energetic heavy nuclei penetrate deeply into Earth's atmosphere?
AUTOR(ES)
Price, P. B.
RESUMO
We calculate the expected fluxes of cosmic ray nuclei with charge 5 ≤ Z ≤ 28 at various depths in the earth's atmosphere, taking into account the initial charge distribution, ionization loss, and various modes of fragmentation. The flux of surviving heavy nuclei is too low by a factor ≈10-10 to account for the ultra-high-energy Centauro events. We describe an experiment to search for highly ionizing particles that may or may not be nuclei.
