Abundances of ultraheavy elements in the cosmic radiation: results from HEAO 3

Abstract

We report here an analysis that, for the first time, systematically normalizes the data from the HEAO 3 Heavy Nuclei Experiment on .the cosmic-ray abundances of all the elements heavier than germanium to that of .iron. In the range of atomic number Z, 33 ≤Z ≤60, the analysis yields abundances of odd-even element pairs. These abundances are consistent with a cosmic-ray source having a composition similar to that of the solar system, but subject to source fractionation correlated with the first ionization potential (FIP) of each element. For Z > 60, the analysis yields abundances of element groups. For these heaviest nuclei, we find an enhancement of the abundance of the platinum group, elements with 74 ≤ Z ≤ 80, relative to that in a propagated solar system source, and a corresponding increase in the abundance of the largely secondary elements in the range 62 ≤ Z ≤ 73. These abundances suggest that there is an enhancement of the r-process contribution to the source nuclei in the Z > 60 charge region. Over the entire region of charge, standard leaky box models of propagation satisfactorily model secondary production.