A Critique of Ionization Measurements of Nuclear Disruptions Produced by Cosmic Radiation

Cosmic rays produce nuclear disintegrations which may be studied by the use of proportional counters. Such counters may measure slow neutrons by capture, fast neutrons by recoil, and protons. These counters will have backgrounds produced by giant showers, contamination alpha-particles and other highly ionizing processes. The counters will in general count several of these quantities simultaneously. In this paper we discuss how the counting rates produced by each of these events may be separated and evaluated. This is done by varying the shielding, counter size, pressure and nature of filling gas, and other parameters.