Measurement of the cosmic ray antiproton/proton flux ratio at TeV energies with the ARGO-YBJ detector

Understand

Cosmic ray antiprotons provide an important probe to study the cosmic ray propagation in the interstellar space and to investigate the existence of dark matter.

• Acting the Earth-Moon system as a magnetic spectrometer, paths of primary antiprotons are deflected in the opposite sense with respect to those of the protons in their way to the Earth.
• This effect allows, in principle, the search for antiparticles in the direction opposite to the observed deficit of cosmic rays due to the Moon (the so-called `Moon shadow').
• The ARGO-YBJ experiment, located at the Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Laboratory (Tibet, P.R.