Response of the BGO Calorimeter to Cosmic-Ray Nuclei in the DAMPE Experiment on Orbit

DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), a satel- lite-based cosmic-ray (CR) and gamma-ray measurement experiment, relies on its calorimeter to measure the energy of incident particles. The calorimeter adopts crystals of bismuth germanium oxide (BGO) as scintillating material, and it is designed to aim for measurements of energy ranging from 50 GeV to 100 TeV in the case of a CR nucleus. This article concerns the response of the BGO calorimeter to nucleus-type CRs. CRs with very low energy can rarely reach the detector due to the Earth’s magnetic field. A cutoff on lower energy can be observed in the energy spectrum. In this article, the cutoff is used to study the response of the calorimeter. Carbon, neon, silicon, and iron are analyzed separately in comparison with Monte Carlo simulations by Geant4.