Launch of the space experiment PAMELA

Abstract

PAMELA is a satellite borne experiment designed to study with great accuracy cosmic rays of galactic, solar, and trapped nature in a wide energy range (protons 80 MeV-700 GeV, electrons 50 MeV-400 GeV). Main objective is the study of the antimatter component: antiprotons (80 MeV-190 GeV), positrons (50 MeV-270 GeV) and search for antimatter with a precision of the order of 10-8. The experiment, housed on board the Russian Resurs-DK I satellite, was launched on June 15th, 2006 in a 350 x 600 km orbit with all inclination of 70'. The detector is composed of a series of scintillator counters arranged at the extremities of a permanent magnet spectrometer to provide charge, time-of-flight, and rigidity information. Lepton/hadron identification is performed by a silicon-tungsten calorimeter and a neutron detector placed at the bottom of the device. An anticounter system is used offline to reject false triggers coming from the satellite. In self-trigger mode the calorimeter, the neutron detector, and a shower tail catcher are capable of an independent measure of the lepton component up to 2 TeV. In this work we describe the experiment, its scientific objectives, and the performance in the first months after launch. (c) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of COSPAR

Production of light (anti)nuclei, (anti)hypertriton, and di-Λin central Au+Au collisions at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

“…B A is interpreted to be inversely related to the fireball volume in coordinate space, i.e., [23,31], which was confirmed by the energy dependence of B A [32,33]. Figure 3 presents the A−1 √ B A as a function of transverse momentum; B 2 , √ B 3 , and 3 √ B 4 calculated based on the invariant yields of (anti)deuterons, (anti) 3 He, (anti) 3 H , and (anti) 4 He are consistent with the STAR B 2 and √ B 3 results in central collisions [10]. PHENIX measurements with (anti)deuteron spectra in other centralities are also presented in the plot for reference.…”

“…On the other hand, the p T dependence of A−1 √ B A is related to the position-momentum correlations in an expanding fireball, and provides information for the nucleon density profile and radial flow. In addition, we noticed that √ B 3 of 3 H is smaller than one of 3 2. (Color online) The comparison of particle ratios between data and model calculations. The data points are taken from the STAR and PHENIX experiments [8,12,13,30].…”

“…Antimatter light nuclei p, d, 3 H, and 3 He have been widely studied in both cosmic rays and nuclear reactions for the purposes of dark matter exploration and the study of manmade matter, such as quark gluon plasma (QGP) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. On the other hand, searching for (anti)hypernuclei bound states and exploring the hyperon-nucleon interaction have been steadily fascinating the sights of nuclear physicists, since the discovery of the first hypernuclei in 1952 [11,12].…”

Two Years of Flight of the Pamela Experiment: Results and Perspectives

“…A long term and detailed study of the antiparticle spectrum over a very wide energy range will allow to shed light over several questions of cosmic ray physics, from parti- cle production and propagation in the galaxy to charge dependent modulation in the heliosphere to dark matter detection. See 11,12) for a discussion of the antimatter detection capabilities of PAMELA .…”

Cosmic ray measurements with Pamela experiment

“…A long term and detailed study of the antiparticle spectrum over a very wide energy range will allow to shed light over several questions of cosmic ray physics, from particle production and propagation in the galaxy to charge dependent modulation in the heliosphere to dark matter detection. See [11,12] for a discussion of the antimatter detection capabilities of PAMELA.…”