S. Kodaira

First Results of High Performance Ge Gamma-Ray Spectrometer Onboard Lunar Orbiter SELENE (KAGUYA)

The high precision gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) is carried on the first Japans large-scaled lunar explorer, SELENE (KAGUYA), successfully launched by the H-IIA rocket on Sep. 14, 2007. The GRS consists of a large Ge crystal as a main detector and massive bismuth germanate crystals and a plastic scintillator as anticoincidence detectors. After a series of initial health check of the GRS, it started a regular observation on December 21, 2007. Energy spectra including many clear peaks of major elements and trace elements on the lunar surface have been measured by the GRS. Global measurement of thorium counting rate on the lunar surface is presented. The region showing the highest count rate of thorium extends from Kepler to Fra Mauro region in the Procellarum. And Apennine Bench and Aristillus region and the northwestern region of Mare Imbrium are high in thorium count rate. Second high count rate region is located in the South Pole-Aitken basin of the farside. Arago and Compton/Belkovich craters are also e...

HELIUM ISOTOPES IN THE RADIATION BELTS OBTAINED BY HIT ONBOARD TSUBASA

The helium isotopes were observed by Heavy Ion Telescope (HIT) onboard the TSUBASA satellite from March, 2002 to September, 2003 in the geostationary transfer orbit. The mass resolution of the HIT instrument is ~ 0.25 amu in energy range 20÷43 MeV/nucleon for helium isotopes. Helium data in the quiet periods were analyzed to obtain the spatial and temporal variation of fluxes of helium isotopes, 3He and 4He. From this analysis, the enhancement of 3He flux as compared with 4He one in low L-value was found. Both of the helium fluxes strongly fluctuated in their L-distributions in each period.

The attenuation length of cosmic ray iron in the atmosphere obtained by tiger experiment

A precise measurement of elemental abundances of galactic cosmic rays from charges Z = 20 to 34 was made by TIGER balloon experiment. Using the various path lengths in the atmosphere between 4 and 16 g/cm2 from the TIGER flight data, we derived the attenuation length of iron nuclei with the energy above 2.5 GeV/n in the atmosphere. As the result, we obtained the attenuation length of 15.5 ± 0.6 g/cm2 which is consistent with previous results of balloon measurements.