First measurement of the absorption of $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ nuclei in matter and impact on their propagation in the galaxy

The ALICE collaboration Acharya, Shreyasi ; Adamova, Dagmar ; Adler, Alexander ; et al.
Nature Phys. 19 (2023) 61-71, 2023.
Inspire Record 2026264 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.133480

In our Galaxy, light antinuclei composed of antiprotons and antineutrons can be produced through high-energy cosmic-ray collisions with the interstellar medium or could also originate from the annihilation of dark-matter particles that have not yet been discovered. On Earth, the only way to produce and study antinuclei with high precision is to create them at high-energy particle accelerators. Although the properties of elementary antiparticles have been studied in detail, the knowledge of the interaction of light antinuclei with matter is limited. We determine the disappearance probability of $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ when it encounters matter particles and annihilates or disintegrates within the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. We extract the inelastic interaction cross section, which is then used as input to calculations of the transparency of our Galaxy to the propagation of $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ stemming from dark-matter annihilation and cosmic-ray interactions within the interstellar medium. For a specific dark-matter profile, we estimate a transparency of about 50%, whereas it varies with increasing $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ momentum from 25% to 90% for cosmic-ray sources. The results indicate that $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ nuclei can travel long distances in the Galaxy, and can be used to study cosmic-ray interactions and dark-matter annihilation.

21 data tables

Raw primary antihelium3-to-helium3 ratio as a function of the momentum p_primary.

Raw primary antihelium3-to-helium3 ratio from Geant4-based MC simulations as a function of the momentum p_primary with default sigma_inel(3Hebar).

Raw primary antihelium3-to-helium3 ratio from Geant4-based MC simulations as a function of the momentum p_primary with sigma_inel(3Hebar)x0.5.

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The cosmic ray proton plus helium energy spectrum measured by the ARGO-YBJ experiment in the energy range 3-300 TeV

The ARGO-YBJ collaboration Bartoli, B. ; Bernardini, P. ; Bi, X. J. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.D 91 (2015) 112017, 2015.
Inspire Record 1355361 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.73337

The ARGO-YBJ experiment is a full-coverage air shower detector located at the Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Observatory (Tibet, People's Republic of China, 4300 m a.s.l.). The high altitude, combined with the full-coverage technique, allows the detection of extensive air showers in a wide energy range and offer the possibility of measuring the cosmic ray proton plus helium spectrum down to the TeV region, where direct balloon/space-borne measurements are available. The detector has been in stable data taking in its full configuration from November 2007 to February 2013. In this paper the measurement of the cosmic ray proton plus helium energy spectrum is presented in the region 3-300 TeV by analyzing the full collected data sample. The resulting spectral index is $\gamma = -2.64 \pm 0.01$. These results demonstrate the possibility of performing an accurate measurement of the spectrum of light elements with a ground based air shower detector.

2 data tables

Proton plus helium flux measured at $5.0 \times 10^4$ GeV.

Light component energy spectrum measured by the ARGO-YBJ experiment by using the full 2008-2012 data sample in each energy bin.