Knee of the cosmic hydrogen and helium spectrum below 1 PeV measured by ARGO-YBJ and a Cherenkov telescope of LHAASO
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Bartoli, B.
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Bernardini, P.
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Bi, X. J.
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Cao, Z.
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Catalanotti, S.
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Chen, S. Z.
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Chen, T. L.
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Cui, S. W.
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Dai, B. Z.
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D'Amone, A.
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Danzengluobu
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De Mitri, I.
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D'Ettorre Piazzoli, B.
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Di Girolamo, T.
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Di Sciascio, G.
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Feng, C. F.
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Feng, Zhaoyang
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Feng, Zhenyong
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Guo, Q. B.
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Guo, Y. Q.
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He, H. H.
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Hu, Haibing
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Hu, Hongbo
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Iacovacci, M.
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Iuppa, R.
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Jia, H. Y.
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Labaciren
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Li, H. J.
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Liu, C.
•
•
Liu, M. Y.
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Lu, H.
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Ma, L. L.
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Ma, X. H.
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Mancarella, G.
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Mari, S. M.
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Marsella, G.
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Mastroianni, S.
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Montini, P.
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Ning, C. C.
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Perrone, L.
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Pistilli, P.
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Salvini, P.
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Santonico, R.
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Shen, P. R.
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Sheng, X. D.
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Shi, F.
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Surdo, A.
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Tan, Y. H.
•
•
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Vigorito, C.
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Wang, H.
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Wu, C. Y.
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Wu, H. R.
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Xue, L.
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Yang, Q. Y.
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Yang, X. C.
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Yao, Z. G.
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Yuan, A. F.
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Zha, M.
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Zhang, H. M.
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Zhang, L.
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Zhang, X. Y.
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Zhang, Y.
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Zhao, J.
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Zhaxiciren
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Zhaxisangzhu
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Zhou, X. X.
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Zhu, F. R.
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Zhu, Q. Q.
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Bai, Y. X.
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Chen, M. J.
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Feng, S. H.
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Gao, B.
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Gu, M. H.
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Hou, C.
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Liu, J. L.
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Wang, X.
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Xiao, G.
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Zhang, B. K.
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Zhang, S. S.
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Zhou, B.
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Zuo, X.
•
ARGO-YBJ Collaboration
Description
This work is supported in China by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (0529110S13), the Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS, and in Italy by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). The Knowledge Innovation Fund (H85451D0U2) of IHEP, China, Projects No. 11475190, No. 10975145 and No. 11075170 of NSFC also provide support to this study. We acknowledge the essential support of W. Y. Chen, G. Yang, X. F. Yuan, C. Y. Zhao, R. Assiro, B. Biondo, S. Bricola, F. Budano, A. Corvaglia, B. D’Aquino, R. Esposito, A. Innocente, A. Mangano, E. Pastori, C. Pinto, E. Reali, F. Taurino, and A. Zerbini. We also appreciate the discussions with Professor Xinhua Bai (SDSMT) in the investigation of saturations and uncertainties and his valuable comments and proofreading of the manuscript.
Abstract
The measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum, in particular for individual species of nuclei, is an important tool to investigate cosmic ray production and propagation mechanisms. The determination of the "knees" in the spectra of different species remains one of the main challenges in cosmic ray physics. In fact, experimental results are still conflicting. In this paper we report a measurement of the mixed proton and helium energy spectrum, obtained with the combined data of the ARGO-YBJ experiment and a wide field of view Cherenkov telescope, a prototype of the future LHAASO experiment. By means of a multiparameter technique, we have selected a high-purity proton plus helium sample. The reconstructed energy resolution is found to be about 25% throughout the investigated energy range from 100 TeV to 3 PeV, with a systematic uncertainty in the absolute energy scale of 9.7%. The found energy spectrum can be fitted with a broken power-law function, with a break at the energy Ek =700 ±230 (stat )±70 (sys ) TeV , where the spectral index changes from -2.56 ±0.05 to -3.24 ±0.36 . The statistical significance of the observed spectral break is 4.2 standard deviations.
Volume
92
Issue
9
Start page
092005
Issn Identifier
1550-7998
Ads BibCode
2015PhRvD..92i2005B
Rights
open.access
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