Accretion rate of IDPs onto the Earth by means of ⁵³Mn and ⁴¹Ca AMS measurement in Antarctic snow

Interplanetary Dust Particles (IDPs) are small grains, a few hundred micrometers in size and mainly originated in the Asteroid Belt. During their flight to the Earth they are irradiated by GCR and SCR and ⁴¹Ca (T_1/2 = 1.03 × 10⁵) and ⁵³Mn (T_1/2 = 3.68 × 10⁶ yr) are formed.
Since there are no significant terrestrial sources for those radionuclides they can be used as a key tracer to determine the accretion rate of IDPs onto the Earth. For this project, 550 kg of snow have been collected at the Antarctic German station Kohnen to be processed to extract ⁴¹Ca and ⁵³Mn. Also the filter used will be processed to check the existence of IDPs surviving evaporation during their entry in the atmosphere. The AMS measurements will be made at the MLL in Garching, a facility with sensitivity down to 10⁻¹⁶ for ⁴¹Ca and 10^-14 for ⁵³Mn.