ISOMAX EXPERIMENT

ISOMAX

Isotope Magnet Experiment

	ISOMAX Isotope Magnet Experiment

ISOMAX Drawing
ISOMAX Team for the 2000 Campaign in Lynn Lake, Manitba, Canada
ISOMAX 3-D View

The experimental goal of the ISOMAX experiment are measurements of light isotopes, especially the Be10/Be9 ratio, up to an energy of some GeV/n. Because of the small fluxes of Beryllium, ISOMAX has a large geometry factor of about 550 cmsr. The Balloon flights will be long-duration flights lasting several days. For this purpose low-power electronics were developed.
The ISOMAX magnet spectrometer consists of a superconducting double-coil magnet and high-resolution driftchambers.
The driftchambers use the same driftcell structure as the chambers used in the previous Balloon experiments. Ground myon tests showed a resolution of about 60-70 m. The expected resolution for higher charged particles is about 40-50 m.
With an average magnetic field of about 0.6 Tesla the MDR (Maximal Detectable Rigidity) of the spectrometer will be around 780 GV for single charged particles and more than 900 GV for Beryllium. Therefore the spectra of particles up to energies of about 1 TeV can be measured.
For particle identification a Time-Of-Flight counter similar to the IMAX experiment is used. The time-resolution for single-charged particles should be 120-130 ps, for Beryllium we expect around 60-80 ps.
To cover a higher energy range, an additional velocity measurement is added using aerogel cherenkov counters. The construction will be similar to the IMAX experiment.
Since the delivery of the magnet was delayed, we had to wait for the first flight from Lynn Lake, Manitoba until summer of 1998. ISOMAX was launched on august 4th at 11:58 Z, and landed on august 5th near Peace River/Alberta around 21:00 Z.

ISOMAX photo gallery

Collaborators

Goddard Space Flight Center

California Institute of Technology

Danish Space Research Institute

ISOMAX Publications

"Measurement of the Abundance of Radioactive ¹⁰Be and Other Light Isotopes in Cosmic Radiation up to 2 GeV Nucleon^-1 with the Balloon-borne Instrument ISOMAX "
T. Hams et al., 2004, ApJ, 661, 892
"The measured ratio of Lithium isotopes in cosmic rays in the energy range from 0.2 to 1.3 GeV/nucleon with the ISOMAX 98 instrument "
H. Goebel et al., Proc. of the 27th ICRC, Hamburg, 2001, 5, 1663
" ¹⁰Be/⁹Be ratio up to 1.0 GeV/nucleon measured in the ISOMAX 98 balloon flight"
T. Hams et al., Proc. of the 27th ICRC, Hamburg, 2001, 5, 1655
"ISOMAX: A Balloon-Borne Instrument to Measure Cosmic Ray Isotopes"
M. Hof et al., to be published in the proceedings of the 1. SAMBA-Symposium
"Cosmic-Ray Isotope Measurements using the Cherenkov-Rigidity Technique in ISOMAX"
G. de Nolfo et al., Proc. of the 26th ICRC, Salt Lake City, 1999, 3, 29
"ISOMAX: Flight Performance of the Isotope Magnet Experiment"
J. Mitchell et al., Proc. of the 26th ICRC, Salt Lake City, 1999, 3, 113
"In-flight Performance of the ISOMAX TOF"
S. Geier et al., Proc. of the 26th ICRC, Salt Lake City, 1999, 3, 117
"The ISOMAX Magnetic Rigidity Spectrometer"
T. Hams et al., Proc. of the 26th ICRC, Salt Lake City, 1999, 3, 121
"ISOMAX: A Balloon-borne Instrument to Study Berlyllium and Other Light Isotopes in the Cosmic Radiation",
R. E. Streitmatter, L. M. Barbier, M. Bremerich, E. R. Christian, M. Hof, K. E. Krombel, W. Menn, R. A. Mewaldt, J. W. Mitchell, J. F. Ormes, I. L. Rasmussen, S. M. Schindler, M. Simon,
Proc. 23th International Cosmic Ray Conference, (1993)
"A Telemetry/Frame Sync Board for Use in Balloon Payloads",
E. R. Christian, J. W. Mitchell, R. Baker, P. Goodwin, R. Nace, R. Smith,
Proc. 24th International Cosmic Ray Conference, (1995)
"Performance of CAMAC TDC and ADC in magnetic field",
S. K. Gupta, L. M. Barbier, E. R. Christian, S. Geier, J. F. Krizmanic, J. W. Mitchell, R. E. Streitmatter, P. J. Wasilewsski,
Nucl. Instr. and Meth. 400 (1997) 428-434

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Last updated 08/13/00 by T. Hams