Scientific article
English

Observation of a Spectral Hardening in Cosmic Ray Boron Spectrum with the DAMPE Space Mission

ContributorsDAMPE Collaboration
Published inPhysical review letters, vol. 134, no. 19, 191001
First online date2025-05-13
Abstract

Secondary cosmic ray fluxes are important probes of the propagation and interaction of high-energy particles in the Galaxy. Recent measurements of primary and secondary cosmic ray nuclei have revealed unexpected spectral features that demand a deeper understanding. In this work we report the direct measurement of the cosmic ray boron spectrum from 10  GeV/n to 8  TeV/n with eight years of data collected by the Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) mission. The measured spectrum shows a hardening at 182±24  GeV/n with a spectral index of γ_{1}=3.02±0.01 before the break and an index change of Δγ=0.31±0.05 after the break. A simple power law model is disfavored at a confidence level of 8σ. Compared with the hardenings measured in the DAMPE proton and helium spectra, the secondary boron spectrum hardens roughly twice as much as these primaries, which is consistent with a propagation related mechanism to interpret the spectral hardenings of cosmic rays observed at hundreds of GeV/n.

Funding
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • National Key Research and Development Program of China [2022YFF0503302]
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China [12220101003]
  • Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • China Association for Science and Technology [YESS20220197]
  • Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
  • Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [YSBR-061]
  • Strategic Priority Program on Space Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences [E02212A02S]
  • New Cornerstone Science Foundation
  • Program for Innovative Talents and Entrepreneur in Jiangsu
  • European Commission - Direct Detection of TeV--PeV Cosmic Rays in Space [851103]
Citation (ISO format)
DAMPE Collaboration. Observation of a Spectral Hardening in Cosmic Ray Boron Spectrum with the DAMPE Space Mission. In: Physical review letters, 2025, vol. 134, n° 19, p. 191001. doi: 10.1103/physrevlett.134.191001
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Article (Published version)
accessLevelRestricted
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Journal ISSN0031-9007
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