The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection HERD facility: a future space instrument for cosmic-ray detection and gamma-ray astronomy

Abstract

The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) facility is a future space mission, scheduled to start its operation around 2027 aboard the China's Space Station. Thanks to its novel design, based on a homogeneous, isotropic and finely-segmented 3D calorimeter, the detector will have a good particle energy resolution and a large effective geometric factor. With these specifications, the experiment is expected to extend the direct measurements of cosmic rays and gamma rays by at least one order of magnitude in energy with respect to the current limits. In such a way, the space mission aims to accomplish important and frontier goals relative to dark matter search, cosmic ray observations and gamma ray astronomy. In this contribution, a review of the current status of the experiment is presented, with particular regards to the estimated detector performances and the expected physics results. *** 27th European Cosmic Ray Symposium -ECRS *** *** 25-29 July 2022 *** *** Nijmegen, the Netherlands *** on behalf of the HERD Collaboration * Speaker