14–19 Sept 2009
Strada Passo dell'Acqua, 34 - 06134 Bosco PERUGIA, Italy
Europe/Rome timezone

The High Energy Cosmic Ray Electron Spectrum measured with the Fermi Space Telescope: some possible interpretations

16 Sept 2009, 15:30
25m
Sala Orsini (Strada Passo dell'Acqua, 34 - 06134 Bosco PERUGIA, Italy)

Sala Orsini

Strada Passo dell'Acqua, 34 - 06134 Bosco PERUGIA, Italy

http://win09.lngs.infn.it

Speaker

Dario Grasso

Description

The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has recently provided the measurement of the high energy (20 GeV to 1 TeV) cosmic ray electrons plus positrons (CRE) spectrum with unprecedented accuracy. The spectrum shows no prominent features and it is significantly harder than that inferred from several previous experiments. While the reported Fermi-LAT data alone can be interpreted in terms of a single (electron dominated) Galactic component, when combined with other complementary experimental results, specifically the CRE spectrum measured by H.E.S.S., and especially the positron fraction measured by PAMELA, an additional electron and positron component has to be invoked. We will show that electron-positron pairs acceleration in Galactic pulsars offer a natural interpretation of all these results and briefly mention other viable scenarios including secondary electron and positron production in supernova remnants and dark matter annihilation/decay. We also briefly discuss the possibility of discriminating among those interpretations by means of other independent measurements.

Primary author

Presentation materials