Response of CR39 detector to 5 A GeV Si14+ ions and measurement of total charge changing cross-section

• Charge resolution of 0.2e was obtained by cone-height measurement.
• Consistency in manual measurements of cone-heights is presented.
• Response of CR39 detector was obtained and fitted with first degree polynomial.
• Total charge changing cross-section of 5 A GeV Si14+ ions in CH2 and CR39 as a combined target was calculated.

In the present work, response of CR39 track etch detector was obtained by cone-height measurement technique. CR39 track etch detector was used to identify the incident charged particles and their fragments by the measurements of cone-height of tracks using an optical microscope DM6000 M and automated image analyzer system installed with Leica QWin Plus software. The CR39 detector was calibrated and the response points were fitted with a linear relation and all the points are within the limits of the experimental errors. The charge resolution of the detector was calculated to be 0.2e. The response function is obtained and fitted with a linear relation which is good throughout Z/β=6.1–14.1. The experimental value of the total charge changing cross-section of 5 A GeV Si14+ ion beam in polyethylene and CR39 combined target is σtot=(734±128) mb. The total charge changing cross-section is compared with the experimental results of others based on cone base-area measurement technique and also fitted by the Bradt–Peters geometrical cross-section.