Measurement of the He nuclei flux at high energies with the PAMELA experiment

• The PAMELA experiment is a satellitebased apparatus launched in June 2006. Its core instrument is a magnetic spectrometer, whose high spatial resolution (∼ 3 micron) provides the discriminative power to separate particles and antiparticles. It can measure the momentum and the energy-loss rate of an incident particles, thus allowing to identify higher charges (up to Z ≃ 5). The main goal for PAMELA is a precise measurement of the light antimatter component in cosmic rays (antiprotons, positrons), with unprecedented statistics and over a largely unexplored energy range. The instrument characteristics and the large statistics allow to precisely measure absolute fluxes for various cosmic-ray species up to high energy. Here the He flux analysis above some GeV is presented.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Cosmic rays

Experiments

Helium

Discriminative power

Energy ranges

Energy-loss rate

High spatial resolution

Incident particles

Magnetic spectrometers

Precise measurements

Satellite detectors

Cosmic ray measurement

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)