Measurement of the charged splash and re-entrant albedo of the cosmic radiation

A study of the flux and energy spectrum of the proton and electron components of the splash and re-entrant cosmic-ray albedo has been made in mid-1965 at ballon altitude over Palestine, Texas (geomagnetic cutoff 4.9 bv). The energy spectrum and the flux of the splash and the re-entrant albedo protons has been measured in the energy range from 37 to 334 Mev, at an atmospheric depth of about 4 g/cm². The two spectra agree within experimental errors and can be represented by the power laws Ray calculated the flux of the re-entrant albedo protons at 85 Mev, and obtained 0.41 (m² sec ster Mev)−1 for a geomagnetic cut-off energy of 1 bev. His calculation is in agreement with the present measurements. The energy spectrum and the flux of the splash and the re-entrant albedo electrons has been measured in an energy range from 10 to 1100 Mev, also at a depth of about 4 g/cm². The splash and re-entrant albedo electron energy spectra at the top of the atmosphere are well represented by power-law spectra where J is the electron flux and E is the kinetic energy. The two spectra agree within experimental errors.