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New Measurement of the Antiproton-to-Proton Flux Ratio up to 100 GeV in the Cosmic Radiation

O. Adriani et al. (PAMELA Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 051101 – Published 2 February 2009
Physics logo See Viewpoint: Debating the source of a rare particle

Abstract

A new measurement of the cosmic-ray antiproton-to-proton flux ratio between 1 and 100 GeV is presented. The results were obtained with the PAMELA experiment, which was launched into low-Earth orbit on-board the Resurs-DK1 satellite on June 15th 2006. During 500 days of data collection a total of about 1000 antiprotons have been identified, including 100 above an energy of 20 GeV. The high-energy results are a tenfold improvement in statistics with respect to all previously published data. The data follow the trend expected from secondary production calculations and significantly constrain contributions from exotic sources, e.g., dark matter particle annihilations.

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  • Received 13 September 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.051101

©2009 American Physical Society

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Debating the source of a rare particle

Published 2 February 2009

Many cosmologists believe that antiprotons in cosmic rays come from the annihilation of dark matter. Data from the PAMELA experiment on board a Russian satellite provide an important test of this possibility.

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Vol. 102, Iss. 5 — 6 February 2009

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