Scientific Seminars
Searching for Dark Matter with Cosmic Antiparticles: the PAMELA Experiment
Pergiorgio Picozza
INFN and University of Rome
2009-10-27 15:00 Brera - Cupola Fiore
New results on the antiproton-to-proton and positron-to-all electron ratios over
a wide energy range (1 - 100 GeV) have been obtained by the PAMELA mission.
These data are mainly interpreted in terms of dark matter annihilation or pulsar
contribution.
The instrument PAMELA, in orbit since June 15th, 2006 on board the Russian
satellite Resurs DK1, is daily delivering to ground 16 Gigabytes of data. The
apparatus is designed to study charged particles in the cosmic radiation, with a
particular focus on antiparticles for searching antimatter and signals of dark
matter annihilation. A combination of a magnetic spectrometer and different
detectors allows antiparticles to be reliably identified from a large background
of other charged particles.
The seminar will review the design of the apparatus and illustrate the most
recent scientific results obtained by PAMELA, together to some of the recent
theoretical interpretations. In particular new data on antiprotons, protons,
positrons, electrons absolute fluxes will be presented.
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