Studying TeV-PeV Cosmic Ray Interactions in Space with DAMPE

by Paul Coppin (Universite de Geneve (CH))

Monday 18 Mar 2024, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

BSP 626 / Zoom

The Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is a space-borne experiment for the direct detection of cosmic rays (CRs). Thanks to its large geometric acceptance and thick calorimeter, DAMPE has provided direct CR flux measurements up to unprecedented energies of hundreds of TeV. A short overview will first be given on DAMPE and its latest results. Following 8 years of successful operation, DAMPE has accumulated sufficient data that the precision of several results is currently limited by systematic rather than statistical uncertainties. This includes hadronic CR measurements, whose main uncertainty stems from hadronic models which are often badly constrained in the TeV-PeV energy range. In the second part of the presentation, it will be shown how DAMPE data cannot only be used to mitigate these uncertainties, but to expand on the initial mission-science goals and provide measurements of ion-nucleon cross sections.

 

DAMPE_Coppin_2024-03-18.pdf