No Arabic abstract
We isolated the anomalous part of the cosmic electron-positron flux within a Bayesian likelihood analysis. Using 219 recent cosmic ray spectral data points, we inferred the values of selected cosmic ray propagation parameters. In the context of the propagation model coded in GalProp, we found a significant tension between the electron positron related and the rest of the fluxes. Interpreting this tension as the presence of an anomalous component in the electron-positron related data, we calculated background predictions for PAMELA and Fermi-LAT based on the non-electron-positron related fluxes. We found a deviation between the data and the predicted background even when uncertainties, including systematics, were taken into account. We identified this deviation with the anomalous electron-positron contribution. We briefly compared this model independent signal to some theoretical results predicting such an anomaly.
We apply generalized statistical mechanics developed for complex systems to theoretically predict energy spectra of particle and anti-particle degrees of freedom in cosmic ray fluxes, based on a $q$-generalized Hagedorn theory for transverse momentum spectra and hard QCD scattering processes. QCD at largest center of mass energies predicts the entropic index to be $q=frac{13}{11}$, whereas the escort duality of the nonextensive thermodynamic formalism predicts an energy split of effective temperature given by $Delta kT =pm frac{1}{10} kT_H approx pm 18 $ MeV, where $T_H$ is the Hagedorn temperature. We carefully analyse the measured primary cosmic ray data of the AMS-02 collaboration and provide evidence that the predicted temperature split is indeed observed, leading to a different energy dependence of the $e^+$ and $e^-$ spectral indices. Moreover, we observe that at larger energies $E$ the measured $e^+e^-$ flux starts to deviate from our QCD-based statistical mechanics theory, with a crossover scale of $E^*=(50 pm 10)$ GeV, which could be a hint for WIMP decay or other new physics setting in at this mass scale. Fits using linear combinations of the escort and non-escort $q$-generalized canonical distributions yield excellent agreement with the measured data in the entire energy range.
A recent analysis of cosmic-ray data from a space borne experiment by the AMS collaboration supports the observation of an excess in the cosmic-ray positron spectrum by previous balloon experiments. The combination of the various experimental data establishes a deviation from the expected background with a significance of more than four standard deviations. The observed change in the spectral index cannot be explained without introducing a new source of positrons. When interpreted within the MSSM a consistent description of the antiproton spectrum, the diffuse gamma-ray flux and the positron fraction is obtained which is compatible with all other experimental data, including recent WMAP data.
Launched on the 11th of June 2008, the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has made several outstanding scientific contributions to the high energy astrophysics community. One of these contributions was the high statistics measurement of the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) electron + positron spectrum from 20 GeV to 1 TeV. The Fermi satellite is in a nearly circular orbit with an inclination of 25.6 degrees at an altitude of 565 km. Given this orbit it is possible to measure the GCR electrons + positrons down to roughly 5 GeV. However, this lower limit in energy is highly dependent on the orbital position of the LAT in geomagnetic coordinates due to the rigidity cutoff. In order to measure the spectrum down to these energies it is necessary to sample the population of electrons + positrons in several different geomagnetic positions. In this poster we present the analysis performed to extend the lower limit in energy of the GCR electron + positron spectrum measured by the Fermi LAT.
Large-scale extragalactic magnetic fields may induce
We report on a new measurement of the cosmic ray (CR) electron and positron spectra in the energy range of 20 MeV -- 1 GeV. The data were taken during the first flight of the balloon-borne spectrometer AESOP-Lite (Anti Electron Sub Orbital Payload), which was flown from Esrange, Sweden, to Ellesmere Island, Canada, in May 2018. The instrument accumulated over 130 hours of exposure at an average altitude of 3 g.cm$^{-2}$ of residual atmosphere. The experiment uses a gas Cherenkov detector and a magnetic spectrometer, consisting of a permanent dipole magnet and silicon strip detectors (SSDs), to identify particle type and measure the rigidity. Electrons and positrons were detected against a background of protons and atmospheric secondary particles. The primary cosmic ray spectra of electrons and positrons, as well as the re-entrant albedo fluxes, were extracted between 20 MeV -- 1 GeV during a positive solar magnetic polarity epoch. The positron fraction below 100 MeV appears flat, suggesting diffusion dominated solar modulation at low rigidity. The all-electron spectrum is presented and compared with models from a heliospheric numerical transport code.