Latest Results of Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum and Composition Measurements From GRAPES-3 Experiment

Abstract

The open questions in cosmic ray physics like their astrophysical origin, acceleration, and propagation in the interstellar medium can be understood by precise measurements of the nuclear composition, and energy spectrum of the primary cosmic rays at the ’kneeâ and the region beyond it.The GRAPES-3 experiment located at Ooty in India is designed with a densely packed array of 400 plastic scintillator detectors and a large area muon detector.It measures cosmic rays from several TeV to over 10 PeV that provide a substantial overlap with direct experiments as well as covers the knee region.The muon multiplicity distribution measured by the large area tracking muon detector associated with the array provides precise measurement of the average nuclear composition of primary cosmic rays.Recently, we have attempted to measure the energy spectrum and composition from sub-TeV to over 10 PeV.The details of this study will be discussed. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.