CALET: a high energy astroparticle physics experiment on the ISS

Understand

CALET (CALorimetric Electron Telescope) is a high energy astroparticle physics experiment planned for a long exposure mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and NASA.

• The main science goal is high precision measurements of the inclusive electron (+positron) spectrum below 1 TeV and the exploration of the energy region above 1 TeV, where the shape of the high end of the spectrum might unveil the presence of nearby sources of acceleration.
• CALET has been designed to achieve a large proton rejection capability (>10$^5$) with a fine grained imaging calorimeter (IMC) followed by a total absorption calorimeter (TASC), for a total thickness of 30 X$_{0}$ and 1.3 proton interaction length.
• With an excellent energy resolution and a lower background contamination with respect to previous experiments, CALET will search for possible spectral signatures of dark matter with both electrons and gamma rays.