Interactions of cosmic rays with Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field

The challenge for cosmic-ray experiments like AMS-02 and GAPS is to maximize the flight time and flight altitude while using a large acceptance high-precision particle detector. It is obvious that atmospheric effects of overburden atmosphere have to taken into account for balloon experiment, but even for space-based experiments atmospherically produced secondary particles have to be considered. The analysis has to take into account the interactions of cosmic rays with Earth's atmosphere. In addition to that deflection of charged particles in Earth's magnetic field can alter the particle flux signficantly.

To deal with these questions, I am using simulations (applied to the GAPS, NCT, and PEBS experiments) based on GEANT4 to calculate particle interactions in the atmosphere and the geomagnetic field that, on the one hand, influence detector design and sensitivity predictions and, on the other hand, the actual data analysis.