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Measurement of the cosmic ray proton spectrum from 40 GeV to 100 TeV with the DAMPE satellite
- Source :
- Science Advances
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- DAMPE satellite has directly measured the cosmic ray proton spectrum from 40 GeV to 100 TeV and revealed a new feature at about 13.6 TeV.<br />The precise measurement of the spectrum of protons, the most abundant component of the cosmic radiation, is necessary to understand the source and acceleration of cosmic rays in the Milky Way. This work reports the measurement of the cosmic ray proton fluxes with kinetic energies from 40 GeV to 100 TeV, with 2 1/2 years of data recorded by the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE). This is the first time that an experiment directly measures the cosmic ray protons up to ~100 TeV with high statistics. The measured spectrum confirms the spectral hardening at ~300 GeV found by previous experiments and reveals a softening at ~13.6 TeV, with the spectral index changing from ~2.60 to ~2.85. Our result suggests the existence of a new spectral feature of cosmic rays at energies lower than the so-called knee and sheds new light on the origin of Galactic cosmic rays.
- Subjects :
- dark matter, cosmic rays, space
Proton
Milky Way
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Dark matter
FOS: Physical sciences
Cosmic ray
Astrophysics
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Kinetic energy
01 natural sciences
0103 physical sciences
010306 general physics
Nuclear Experiment
Research Articles
Physics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
Spectral index
Multidisciplinary
010308 nuclear & particles physics
High Energy Physics::Phenomenology
Settore FIS/01 - Fisica Sperimentale
SciAdv r-articles
Physics::Accelerator Physics
High Energy Physics::Experiment
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Science Advances
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....31e44b5883c45d08e1e07c515b46cd4e