On the Heavy Primary Cosmic Ray Interactions in Nuclear Emulsions

Abstract

The interactions of heavy primary particles in cosmic rays are analyzed by the method of nuclear emulsions. From this analysis, some characteristics of nuclear structure are obtained. The ratio of the number of fragment alpha particles to that of fragment protons produced by incident heavy primaries (Z between 6 and 9) is about 0.37 for N_h≤7 events, and this value is in good agreement with the results of other experiments. The transparency of medium nucleus is estimated to be about 30%. The relation between incident energies and average number of produced mesons is compared with other accerelator data. The experimental results are well interpreted from the view that the medium nucleus having charge 6 to 9 is constructed from a group of some complete helium nuclei if the charge of medium nucleus is evem (alpha particle model), while the odd charged medium nucleus is composed of some helium nuclei and a helium nucleus accompanied by an extra proton.