A LARGE AREA HIGH CHARGE RESOLUTION SCINTILLATION COUNTER TELESCOPE FOR COSMIC RAY STUDIES

A cosmic ray telescope consisting of a 1.7 m long gas Čerenkov detector sandwiched between two large scintillator detectors has been flown from balloons to study high energy heavy nuclei in the primary cosmic radiation. This paper discusses the design and testing of the scintillation detectors. It is demonstrated that geometry factors two orders of magnitude larger than are in common use can be achieved with no loss of charge resolution. With a geometry factor in excess of 500 cm2·sterad we have obtained unambiguous charge determination up to Z = 20. This resolution is comparable to that obtainable with emulsions using photometric techniques. © 1968.