Speaker
Roberto Battiston
(Universita' di Perugia e INFN Perugia, Italy)
Description
Precise knowledge of the hadronic component of cosmic rays is needed to describe the cosmic ray production, acceleration and propagation mechanisms in our galaxy. Present measurements suffer from limitations coming from short exposure time, intrinsic instrumental limitations and restricted energy range. The AMS-02 experiment is a large acceptance magnetic spectrometer to perform high statistics studies of cosmic rays in space. The detector will operate on the International Space Station for more than 3 years from 2009. The status of the experiment is reviewed. AMS-02 will precisely measure the cosmic ray fluxes of individual elements up to Z~25 in the rigidity range from ~1GV to ~1TV. AMS-02 will allow to test propagation models through the precise measurements of secondary-to-primary ratios as D/p, 3He/4He in the energy range few hundreds MeV to tens of GeV, and B/C, sub-Fe/Fe up to ~1TV. In particular the original measurements of 10 Be/9 Be will be performed with high accuracy allowing the understanding of the age of the cosmic-ray confinement and constraint models of the size of the galactic halo. Among the goal of the precision measurement of Cosmic Rays flux and composition by AMS-02 is the measurement for rare components like positrons, and antiprotons, or component never observed before like antideuterons and antinuclei. These measurements could allow to understand cosmic misteries like the origin of dark matter or the existence of nuclear antimatter.