AbstractPAMELA 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 80MeV–700GeV, electrons 50MeV–400GeV). Main objective is the study of the antimatter component: antiprotons (80MeV–190GeV), positrons (50MeV–270GeV) and search for antimatter with a precision of the order of 10−8. The experiment, housed on board the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite, was launched on June 15th, 2006 in a 350×600km orbit with an 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 2TeV. In this work we describe the experiment, its scientific objectives, and the performance in the first months after launch.
Launch of the space experiment PAMELA
Advances in Space Research ; 42 , 3 ; 455-466
2007-07-17
12 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
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