The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) Balloon Experiment had a successful test flight and a science flight in 2000–01 and 2002–03 and an unsuccessful launch in 2005–06 from McMurdo, Antarctica, returning 16 and 19days of flight data. ATIC is designed to measure the spectra of cosmic rays (protons to iron). The instrument is composed of a Silicon matrix detector followed by a carbon target interleaved with scintillator tracking layers and a segmented BGO calorimeter composed of 320 individual crystals totaling 18 radiation lengths to determine the particle energy. BGO (Bismuth Germanate) is an inorganic scintillation crystal and its light output depends not only on the energy deposited by particles but also on the temperature of the crystal. The temperature of balloon instruments during flight is not constant due to sun angle variations as well as differences in albedo from the ground. The change in output for a given energy deposit in the crystals in response to temperature variations was determined.

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) experiment is designed for high energy cosmic ray ion detection. The possibility to identify high energy primary cosmic ray electrons in the presence of the ‘background’ of cosmic ray protons has been studied by simulating nuclear-electromagnetic cascade showers using the FLUKA Monte Carlo simulation code. The ATIC design, consisting of a graphite target and an energy detection device, a totally active calorimeter built up of 2.5cm×2.5cm×25.0cm BGO scintillator bars, gives sufficient information to distinguish electrons from protons. While identifying about 80% of electrons as such, only about 2 in 10,000 protons (@ 150GeV) will mimic electrons. In September of 1999 ATIC was exposed to high-energy electron and proton beams at the CERN H2 beam line, and this data confirmed the electron detection capabilities of ATIC. From 2000-12-28 to 2001-01-13 ATIC was flown as a long duration balloon test flight from McMurdo, Antarctica, recording over 360h of data and allowing electron separation to be confirmed in the flight data. In addition, ATIC electron detection capabilities can be checked by atmospheric gamma-ray observations.

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) experiment is designed to investigate the charge composition and energy spectra of primary cosmic rays over the energy range from about 10(11) to 10(14) eV during Long Duration Balloon (LDB) flights from McMurdo, Antarctica. Currently, analysis from the ATIC-1 test flight and ATIC-2 science flight is underway and preparation for a second science flight is in progress. Charge identification of the incident cosmic ray is accomplished, primarily, by a pixilated Silicon Matrix detector located at the very top of the instrument. While it has been shown that the Silicon Matrix detector provides good charge identification even in the presence of electromagnetic shower backscatter from tile calorimeter, the detector only measures the charge once. In this paper, we examine use of the top scintillator hodoscope detector to provide a second measure of the cosmic ray charge and, thus, improve the ATIC charge identification. (c) 2007 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC), a balloon-borne experiment, is designed to investigate the composition and energy spectra of cosmic rays of charge Z = 1 to 26 over the energy range ~ 10^11 - ~ 10^14 eV. The instrument consists of a silicon matrix charge detector, plastic scintillator strip hodoscopes interleaved with graphite interaction targets, and an 18 radiation length deep, fully active bismuth germanate (BGO) calorimeter. ATIC has had two successful long duration balloon (LDB) flights launched from McMurdo Station, Antarctica in 2000 and 2002. In this paper, we present the all-particle spectrum extracted from data collected during the ATIC flights, and compare it with results from other experiments at both lower and higher energies.

The ATIC balloon-borne experiment measures the energy spectra of elements from H to Fe in primary cosmic rays from about 100 GeV to 100 TeV. ATIC is comprised of a fully active bismuth germanate calorimeter, a carbon target with embedded scintillator hodoscopes, and a silicon matrix that is used as the main charge detector. The silicon matrix produces good charge resolution for protons and helium but only partial resolution for heavier nuclei. In the present paper, the charge resolution of ATIC was improved and backgrounds were reduced in the region from Be to Si by using the upper layer of the scintillator hodoscope as an additional charge detector. The flux ratios of nuclei B/C, C/O, N/O in the energy region from about 10 GeV/nucleon to 300 GeV/nucleon obtained from this high-resolution, high-quality charge spectra are presented, and compared with existing theoretical predictions.

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC), a balloon-borne experiment, is designed to investigate the composition and energy spectra of cosmic rays of charge Z = 1 to 26 over the energy range - 10(exp 11) - 10(exp 14) ev. The instrument consists of a silicon matrix charge detector, plastic-scintillator strip hodoscopes interleaved with graphite interaction targets, and an 18 radiation length deep, fully active bismuth germanate (BGO) calorimeter. ATIC has had two successful long duration balloon (LDB) flights launched from McMurdo Station, Antarc't'ica in 2000 and 2002. In this paper, we present the all-particle spectrum extracted from data collected during the ATIC flights, and compare it with results from other experiments at both lower and higher energies.

This paper reports on the results of measurements performed in the course of the ATIC-2 balloon experiment (2002–2003) for the energy spectra of particles (such as protons; He, C, O, Ne, Mg, Si, and Fe nuclei; and some groups of nuclei) and the all-particle energy spectrum in primary cosmic rays at energies ranging from 50 GeV to 200 TeV. The conclusion is drawn that the energy spectra of protons and helium nuclei differ substantially (the spectrum of protons is steeper) and that the shape of the energy spectra of protons and heavy nuclei cannot be described by a power function.

The preliminary energy spectra of heavy nuclei C, O, Ne, Mg, Si, and Fe in the primary cosmic rays measured by the ATIC-2 experiment are presented and compared to previous data and to propagation models. Using previous data to extend the ATIC-2 results for all heavy nuclei to higher energy, the combined spectra can be best fit with diffusion model with weak reacceleration and scattering on random magnetic field with a Kolmogorov spectrum fluctuations becoming dominant at high energy.

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) balloon experiment is designed to investigate the composition and energy spectra of cosmic rays at the highest energies currently accessible by direct measurements, i.e., the region up to 100TeV. The instrument consists of a silicon matrix for charge measurement, a graphite target (0.75 nuclear interaction length) to induce hadronic interactions, three layers of scintillator strip hodoscopes for triggering and trajectory reconstruction, and a Bismuth Germanate (BGO) crystal calorimeter (18 radiation lengths) to measure particle energies. ATIC has had two successful Long Duration Balloon (LDB) flights from McMurdo, Antarctica: one from 12/28/00 to 01/13/01 and the other from 12/29/02 to 01/18/03. We present the energy spectra of protons and helium extracted from the first flight, over the energy range from 100GeV to 100TeV, and compare them with the results from other experiments at both the lower and higher energies. ATIC-1 results do not indicate significant differences in spectral shape between protons and helium over the investigated energy range.

The results of ATIC-2 baloon experiment (2002-2003) for energy spectra of protons, He, C, O, Ne, Mg, Si, Fe, some groups of nuclei, and all-particle spectrum in primary cosmic rays are presented in energy region 50GeV–200TeV. The conclusion is that the spectra of protons and helium nuclei are essentially different (the spectrum of protons is steeper) and the spectra of protons and heavy nuclei have no-power form.

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) Balloon Experiment contains a segmented calorimeter composed of 320 individual BGO crystals (18 radiation lengths deep) to determine the particle energy. Like all inorganic scintillation crystals the light output of BGO depends not only on the energy deposited by particles but also on the temperature of the crystal. ATIC had successful flights in 2000/2001 and 2002/2003 from McMurdo, Antarctica. The temperature of balloon instruments varies during their flights at altitude due to sun angle variations and differences in albedo from the ground and is monitored and recorded. In order to determine the temperature sensitivity of the ATIC calorimeter it was temperature cycled in the thermal vacuum chamber at the CSBF in Palestine, TX. The temperature dependence is derived from the pulse height response to cosmic ray muons at various temperatures.

We have performed a detailed Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation for the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) detector using the MC code FLUKA-2005 which is capable of simulating particles up to 10PeV. The ATIC detector has completed two successful balloon flights from McMurdo, Antarctica lasting a total of more than 35 days. ATIC is designed as a multiple, long duration balloon flight, investigation of the cosmic ray spectra from below 50GeV to near 100TeV total energy; using a fully active Bismuth Germanate (BGO) calorimeter. It is equipped with a large mosaic of silicon detector pixels capable of charge identification, and, for particle tracking, three projective layers of x–y scintillator hodoscopes, located above, in the middle and below a 0.75 nuclear interaction length graphite target. Our simulations are part of an analysis package of both nuclear (A) and energy dependences for different nuclei interacting in the ATIC detector. The MC simulates the response of different components of the detector such as the Si-matrix, the scintillator hodoscopes and the BGO calorimeter to various nuclei. We present comparisons of the FLUKA-2005 MC calculations with GEANT calculations and with the ATIC CERN data.