Cosmic Ray Helium spectrum measured by the DAMPE experiment

Abstract

DAMPE (DArk Matter Particle Explorer) is a Space mission project promoted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with Universities and Institutes from China, Italy and Switzerland. The satellite hosting the DAMPE detector has been successfully launched on December 17th, 2015, and is currently smoothly operating and collecting data. The main goals of the mission are: indirect search of Dark Matter, looking for signatures in the electron and photon spectra with energies up to 10 TeV; high energy gamma-ray astronomy; analysis of the flux and composition of primary Cosmic Rays (CR) in the energy range from a few tens of GeV up to hundreds of TeV. In this work we present the latest result on the CR Helium spectrum measured by DAMPE and discuss the observed features in the light of the current models about the origin, acceleration and propagation of galactic Cosmic Rays. The outcome is validated through independent analyses performed within the DAMPE Collaboration, which give consistent results within the analysis uncertainties.

Rapporteur Talk: Cosmic Ray Direct

“…The energy of the hardening is 1.3 TeV which corresponds to a rigidity of ∼ 650 GV, somewhat higher than what for instance AMS-02 finds for the rigidity of the spectral breaks in nuclei. The corresponding analysis by DAMPE [59] is again in agreement with CALET (as well as previous data: PAMELA, AMS-02, ATIC-2, CREAM and NUCLEON). The hardening is observed between 200 and 300 GeV/n in kinetic energy per nucleon, thus in…”