M. Tacconi

SYSTEMATIC INVESTIGATION OF SOLAR MODULATION OF GALACTIC PROTONS FOR SOLAR CYCLE 23 USING A MONTE CARLO APPROACH WITH PARTICLE DRIFT EFFECTS AND LATITUDINAL DEPENDENCE

A propagation model of galactic cosmic protons through the heliosphere was implemented using a two-dimensional Monte Carlo approach to determine the differential intensities of protons during solar cycle 23. The model includes the effects due to the variation of solar activity during the propagation of cosmic rays from the boundary of the heliopause down to Earths position. Drift effects are also accounted for. The simulated spectra were found to be in agreement with those obtained from experimental observations carried out by the BESS, AMS, and PAMELA collaborations. In addition, the modulated spectrum determined with the present code for the year 1995 exhibits the latitudinal gradient and equatorial southward offset minimum found by the Ulysses fast scan in 1995.

Nuclear and non-ionizing energy-loss for Coulomb scattered particles from low energy up to relativistic regime in space radiationenvironment

In the space environment, instruments onboard of spacecrafts can be affected by displacement damage due to radiation. The differential scattering cross section for screened nucleus--nucleus interactions - i.e., including the effects due to screened Coulomb nuclear fields -, nuclear stopping powers and non-ionization energy losses are treated from about 50 keV/nucleon up to relativistic energies.

ENERGY LOSS FOR ELECTRONS IN THE HELIOSPHERE AND LOCAL INTERSTELLAR SPECTRUM FOR SOLAR MODULATION

Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) entering the Heliosphere are affected by the solar modulation, which is a combination of diffusion, convection, magnetic drift, and adiabatic energy losses usually seen as a decrease of the flux at low energies (less than 10 GeV). We improved a quasi time-dependent 2D Stochastic Simulation code describing such effects. We focused our attention on the electron modulation, adding energy losses mechanisms in the Heliosphere that can be neglected for protons and ions: inverse Compton, ionization, synchrotron, and bremsstrahlung. These effects have been evaluated in the region affected by the solar magnetic field, up to 100 AU, where the environment conditions are not constant, especially the magnetic field intensity, and the photon density. In our calculation the inverse compton energy losses are dominant, but they contribute only a few percent in comparison with the adiabatic losses. We also compared the Local Interstellar Spectrum (LIS) of primary electrons with experimental data collected in the past years at energies 20 GeV. We found that, inside one standard deviation, LIS fits the data and can be used in a Monte carlo code reproducing CR propagation in the Heliosphere.

Latitudinal Dependence of Cosmic Rays Modulation at 1 AU and Interplanetary-Magnetic-Field Polar Correction

The cosmic rays differential intensity inside the heliosphere, for energy below 30 GeV/nuc, depends on solar activity and interplanetary magnetic field polarity. This variation, termed solar modulation, is described using a 2D (radius and colatitude) Monte Carlo approach for solving the Parker transport equation that includes diffusion, convection, magnetic drift, and adiabatic energy loss. Since the whole transport is strongly related to the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) structure, a better understanding of his description is needed in order to reproduce the cosmic rays intensity at the Earth, as well as outside the ecliptic plane. In this work an interplanetary magnetic field model including the standard description on ecliptic region and a polar correction is presented. This treatment of the IMF, implemented in the HelMod Monte Carlo code (version 2.0), was used to determine the effects on the differential intensity of Proton at 1 AU and allowed one to investigate how latitudinal gradients of proton intensities, observed in the inner heliosphere with the Ulysses spacecraft during 1995, can be affected by the modification of the IMF in the polar regions.

Nuclear and non-Ionizing Energy-Loss of Electrons with low and Relativistic Energies in Materials and Space Environment

The treatment of the electron-nucleus interaction based on the Mott differential cross section was extended to account for effects due to screened Coulomb potentials, finite sizes and finite rest masses of nuclei for electrons above 200 keV and up to ultra high energies. This treatment allows one to determine both the total and differential cross sections, thus, subsequently to calculate the resulting nuclear and non-ionizing stopping powers. Above a few hundreds of MeV, neglecting the effect due to finite rest masses of recoil nuclei the stopping power and NIEL result to be largely underestimated; while, above a few tens of MeV the finite size of the nuclear target prevents a further large increase of stopping powers which approach almost constant values.

ELECTRICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF SiPM AS A FUNCTION OF TEST FREQUENCY AND TEMPERATURE

To appear on the Proceedings of the 13th ICATPP Conference onAstroparticle, Particle, Space Physics and Detectorsfor Physics Applications,Villa Olmo (Como, Italy), 3–7 October, 2011,to be published by World Scientific (Singapore).ELECTRICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF SiPM AS AFUNCTION OF TEST FREQUENCYAND TEMPERATURE

PROTON MODULATION IN THE HELIOSPHERE FOR DIFFERENT SOLAR CONDITIONS AND PREDICTION FOR AMS-02

Spectra of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) measured at the Earth are the combination of several processes: sources production and acceleration, propagation in the interstellar medium and propagation in the heliosphere. Inside the solar cavity the flux of GCRs is reduced due to the solar modulation, the interaction which they have with the interplanetary medium. We realized a 2D stochastic simulation of solar modulation to reproduce CR spectra at the Earth, and evaluated the importance in our results of the Local Interstellar Spectrum (LIS) model and its agreement with data at high energy. We show a good agreement between our model and the data taken by AMS-01 and BESS experiments during periods with different solar activity conditions. Furthermore we made a prediction for the flux which will be measured by AMS-02 experiment.

Inside out: unveiling local interstellar spectra of cosmic ray species

Local interstellar spectra (LIS) for protons, helium and antiprotons are built using the most recent experimental results combined with state-of-the-art models for propagation in the Galaxy and Heliosphere. Two propagation packages, GALPROP and HelMod, are combined to provide a single framework that is run to reproduce direct measurements of cosmic ray (CR) species at different modulation levels and at both polarities of the solar magnetic field. To do so in a self-consistent way, an iterative procedure was developed, where the GALPROP LIS output is fed into HelMod that provides modulated spectra for specific time periods of selected experiments to compare with the data. The parameters were tuned with a maximum likelihood procedure using an extensive data set of proton spectra from 1997-2015. The proposed LIS accommodate both the low energy interstellar CR spectra measured by Voyager 1 and the high energy observations by BESS, PAMELA, AMS-01, and AMS-02 made from the balloons and near-Earth payloads. The proton LIS also accounts for Ulysses counting rate features measured out of the ecliptic plane. The obtained solution is in a good agreement with proton, helium, and antiproton data by AMS-02, BESS, and PAMELA in the whole energy range.

Cosmic Rays Propagation with HelMod: Difference between forward-in-time and backward-in-time approaches

The cosmic rays modulation inside the heliosphere is well described by a transport equation introduced by Parker in 1965. To solve this equation several approaches were followed in the past. Recently the Monte Carlo approach becomes widely used in force of his advantages with respect to other numerical methods. In the Monte Carlo approach, the transport equation is associated to a fully equivalent set of Stochastic Differential Equations. This set is used to describe the stochastic path of a quasi-particle from a source, e.g., the interstellar medium, to a specific target, e.g., a detector at Earth. In this work, we present both the Forward-in-Time and Backward-in-Time Monte Carlo solutions. We present an implementation of both algorithms in the framework of HelMod Code showing that the difference between the two approach is below 5\% that can be quoted as the systematic uncertain of the Method itself.

Trajectory reconstruction in the Earth Magnetosphere using TS05 model and evaluation of geomagnetic cutoff in AMS-02 data

D. Grandi∗1, B. Bertucci45, M.J. Boschini13, M. Crispoltoni45, S. Della Torre1, F. Donnini45, M. Duranti45, D. D’Urso56, E. Fiandrini45, V. Formato5, G. La Vacca1, M. Gervasi12, M. Graziani45, F. Nozzoli56, S. Pensotti12, C. Pizzolotto 56, P.G. Rancoita1, D. Rozza12, M. Tacconi1, V. Vitale 56, M. Zannoni12 1 INFN, Sezione di Milano Bicocca, I20126 Milano, Italy 2 Università di Milano Bicocca, I-20126 Milano, Italy 3 CINECA, I20090 Segrate (MI) ITALY 4 University of Perugia, I06124 Perugia, Italy 5 INFN Perugia, I06124 Perugia, Italy 6 ASDC, ASI Science Data Center, I-00133 Roma, Italy E-mail: davide.grandi@mib.infn.it