First Results from the PAMELA Space Mission
Abstract
On the 15th of June 2006, the PAMELA satellite-borne experiment was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome and it has been collecting data since July 2006. The apparatus comprises a time-of-flight system, a silicon-microstrip magnetic spectrometer, a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic calorimeter, an anticoincidence system, a shower tail counter scintillator and a neutron detector. The combination of these devices allows precision studies of the charged cosmic radiation to be conducted over a wide energy range (100 MeV - 100's GeV) with high statistics. The primary scientific goal is the measurement of the antiproton and positron energy spectrum in order to search for exotic sources, such as dark matter particle annihilations. PAMELA is also searching for primordial antinuclei (anti-helium), and testing cosmic-ray propagation models through precise measurements of the antiparticle energy spectrum and precision studies of light nuclei and their isotopes. We review the status of the apparatus and present preliminary results concerning antiparticle measurements and dark-matter indirect searches.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0810.3508,
title = {First Results from the PAMELA Space Mission},
author = {M. Boezio and V. Bonvicini and G. Jerse and E. Mocchiutti and A. Vacchi and G. Zampa and N. Zampa and O. Adriani and M. Bongi and L. Bonechi and S. Bottai and D. Fedele and P. Papini and S. B. Ricciarini and P. Spillantini and E. Taddei and E. Vannuccini and G. C. Barbarino and D. Campana and R. Carbone and G. Osteria and G. A. Bazilevskaya and A. N. Kvashnin and Y. I. Stozhkov and R. Bellotti and A. Bruno and F. Cafagna and E. A. Bogomolov and S. Y. Krutkov and G. Vasilyev and S. Borisov and M. Casolino and M. P. De Pascale and N. De Simone and V. Di Felice and V. Malvezzi and L. Marcelli and N. Nikonov and P. Picozza and R. Sparvoli and P. Carlson and P. Hofverberg and S. Orsi and M. Pearce and G. Castellini and A. M. Galper and L. Grishantseva and A. Leonov and S. V. Koldashov and V. V. Mikhailov and S. A. Voronov and Y. T. Yurkin and V. G. Zverev and W. Menn and M. Simon and M. Ricci},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.3508},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
Parallel talk at ICHEP08, Philadelphia, USA, July 2008. 5 pages, LaTeX, 3 eps figures