Kyung Ho Moon

Interpreting anomalous electron pairs as new particle decays

In heavy particle decays found in cosmic ray interactions recorded in the JACEE emulsion chambers, multiple electron pairs were previously reported. These pairs apparently originated from conversions of photons emitted in the decays. It is difficult to explain the overall properties of these decays in terms of known heavy particle decay modes. A recently published compilation of low-energy nuclear data suggests the presence of excess electron pairs with invariant mass of about 9 MeV/c2, which may be explained by postulating the existence of a new neutral boson decaying into the electron pair. The feasibility of explaining the JACEE electron pairs with this hypothesis is presented.

Cosmic ray H and He spectra from 2 to 800 TeV/nucleon from the JACEE experiments

Results for the cosmic ray hydrogen and helium spectra up to 800 TeV, near the “knee” region, are presented. There is no sign of a break in either the hydrogen or helium spectra. The differential power law slopes are 2.80±0.04 for hydrogen and 2.68±0.06 for helium. With these new H and He measurements, together with earlier reported results for the heavier elements, the sum of the spectra give an all-particle spectrum that is in good agreement with the all-particle spectrum measured using extensive air showers.