Properties of Cosmic Lithium Isotopes Measured by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 201001 (2025)
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Abstract

We present the first measurement of cosmic-ray fluxes of $^6\textrm{Li}$ and $^7\textrm{Li}$ isotopes in the rigidity range from 1.9 to 25 GV. The measurements are based on $9.7 \times 10^5$ $^6\textrm{Li}$ and $1.04 \times 10^6$ $^7\textrm{Li}$ nuclei collected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station from May 2011 to October 2023. We observe that over the entire rigidity range the $^6\textrm{Li}$ and $^7\textrm{Li}$ fluxes exhibit nearly identical time variations and, above $\sim$4  GV, the time variations of $^6\textrm{Li}$, $^7\textrm{Li}$, He, Be, B, C, N, and O fluxes are identical. Above $\sim$7  GV, we find an identical rigidity dependence of the $^6\textrm{Li}$ and $^7\textrm{Li}$ fluxes. This shows that they are both produced by collisions of heavier cosmic-ray nuclei with the interstellar medium and, in particular, excludes the existence of a sizable primary component in the $^7\textrm{Li}$ flux.

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The $^6\textrm{Li}$ flux ($\Phi ^{^6\textrm{Li}}$) and $^7 \textrm{Li}$ flux ($\Phi ^{^7\textrm{Li}}$) in units of $[\textrm{m}^2 \cdot \textrm{sr} \cdot \textrm{s} \cdot \textrm{GV}]^{−1}$ and the flux ratio $\Phi ^{^7\textrm{Li}}/\Phi ^{^6\textrm{Li}}$ as a function of rigidity at the top of AMS for four Bartels rotations.

The time-averaged $\Phi ^{^6\textrm{Li}}$ and $\Phi ^{^7\textrm{Li}}$ in units of $[\textrm{m}^2 \cdot \textrm{sr} \cdot \textrm{s} \cdot \textrm{GV}]^{−1}$ and the flux ratio $\Phi ^{^7\textrm{Li}}/\Phi ^{^6\textrm{Li}}$ as a function of rigidity at the top of AMS.

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AMS Data at CRDB (Cosmic-ray DataBase)

The CRDB at LPSC/IN2P3/CNRS, online since 2013, is fully described in Maurin et al. (2014, 2020)

AMS Data at Cosmic Ray DataBase (CRDB) © SSDC

The CRDB © SSDC is developed at the Space Science Data Center, a facility of the Italian Space Agency (ASI).