The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) Antarctic Balloon Payload
Abstract
The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) is an Antarctic stratospheric balloon mission designed to provide unmatched sensitivity to low-energy (<0.25 GeV/n) cosmic-ray antiprotons, antideuterons, and antihelium nuclei as signatures of dark matter. The distinctive GAPS particle identification technique relies on measuring the energy loss along the track of an incoming antinucleus as it slows down and is captured into an exotic atom, and then detecting the de-excitation X-rays and the nuclear annihilation products. This measurement is realized using a Tracker composed of more than 1000 custom silicon strip detectors and a plastic scintillator time-of-flight (TOF) system instrumenting more than 40m. Together, these subsystems provide the velocity and energy resolution, stopping power, particle tracking, and X-ray identification necessary to distinguish rare antinucleus signals from the abundant positive-nucleus backgrounds, all within the constraints of a high-altitude mission. A multi-loop capillary heat pipe system has been developed to maintain the tracker operating temperature with significant mass and power savings over a conventional pump-based system. The first GAPS science payload flew for 25 days during the 2025/26 NASA Antarctic balloon campaign. We detail the design, integration, and commissioning of the payload prior to flight.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.19830,
title = {The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) Antarctic Balloon Payload},
author = {The GAPS Collaboration and Kazutaka Aoyama and Tsuguo Aramaki and Padrick Beggs and Mirko Boezio and Steven E. Boggs and Valter Bonvicini and Gabriel Bridges and Donatella Campana and Scott Candey and William W. Craig and Philip von Doetinchem and Conor Earley and Erik Everson and Lorenzo Fabris and Sydney Feldman and Hideyuki Fuke and Florian Gahbauer and Cory Gerrity and Luca Ghislotti and Charles J. Hailey and Takeru Hayashi and Akiko Kawachi and Kai Konoma and Masayoshi Kozai and Paolo Lazzaroni and Alexander Lowell and Massimo Manghisoni and Matteo Martucci and Keita Mizukoshi and Emiliano Mocchiutti and Brent Mochizuki and Kazuoki Munakata and Riccardo Munini and Shun Okazaki and Jerome Olson and Rene A. Ong and Giuseppe Osteria and Francesco Palma and Kaliroë Pappas and Kerstin Perez and Francesco Perfetto and Lodovico Ratti and Valerio Re and Elisa Riceputi and Brandon Roach and Field R. Rogers and Nathan Saffold and Suzuto Sakamoto and Pratiksha Sawant and Valentina Scotti and Yuki Shimizu and Roberta Sparvoli and Achim Stoessl and Arathi Suraj and Alessio Tiberio and Grace Tytus and Elena Vannuccini and Sarah Vickers and Luigi Volpicelli and Zhen Wu and Mengjiao Xiao and Jinghe Yang and Kelsey Yee and Tetsuya Yoshida and Gianluigi Zampa and Jiancheng Zeng and Jeffrey Zweerink},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.19830},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
16 pages, 12 figures, submitted to NIM A