Isotope production by solar and galactic cosmic rays: experimental depth profiles and model calculations

Abstract

The production rates of cosmogenic nuclides in lunar samples and meteorites are directly related to the energy spectra of solar (SCR) and galactic (GCR) cosmic rays. Induced activity of radionuclides of different half lives have been used to monitor their fluxes in the past However, due to complicated exposure history and fragmentation of lunar rocks and meteorites and the difficulty in calculating the production profiles in rocks of different shape and size, there has been considerable debate about the fluxes of SCR and GCR and their variation with time. Here we describe the results of our study on some lunar samples and meteorites made to obtain their fluxes and production functions of different nuclides.