General antiparticle spectrometer experiment (GAPS): Recent progress and future plans

Sep 2, 2009

Citations per year

20112012201302
Abstract: (AIP)
We report on recent work on the General Antiparticle Spectrometer Experiment (GAPS). GAPS is a balloon-based search for antideuterons generated in the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles. Antideuterons provide an extremely clean si gnature of dark matter. It is difficult to produce backgrounds that mimic the annihilation antideuterons. GAPS consists of a time-of-flight system combined with a multi-layer particle tracker composed of pixellated Si(Li) detectors. When an antideuteron e nters the telescope it slows down and is captured in a silicon atom. The resultant exotic atom deexcites with the emission of multiple atomic X-rays, and a shower of subatomic particles when the antideuteron enters the nucleus from the atomic ground state . The atomic X-rays, TOF, depth sensing and charged particle multiplicity provide an extremely stringent particle identification capability. GAPS can improve the current BESS experiment antideuteron limits by more than three orders of magnitude and access a large part of beyond standard model physics parameter spaces.
  • 98.52.-b
  • 95.35.+d
  • 95.85.Ry
  • dark matter
  • neutrinos
  • galaxies