Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter

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Launch of ATIC

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) is a

cosmic rays. ATIC was launched from McMurdo Station for the first time in December 2000 and has since completed three successful flights out of four.[1]

Working principle

The detector uses the principle of

electrical charge.[2]

Collaborators

The project is an international collaboration of researchers from Louisiana State University, University of Maryland, College Park, Marshall Space Flight Center, Purple Mountain Observatory in China, Moscow State University in Russia and Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. ATIC is supported in the United States by NASA and flights are conducted under the auspices of the Balloon Program Office at Wallops Flight Facility by the staff of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. Antarctic logistics are provided by the National Science Foundation and its contractor Raytheon Polar Services Corporation. The principal investigator for ATIC is John Wefel of Louisiana State University.

Team and closeup of the instrument

Results

In November 2008, researchers published in

Dark Matter particles, for example WIMP Kaluza-Klein particles of mass near 620 GeV.[3][4]

Related data from other experiments

Earlier in the year, the satellite

PAMELA had found excess positrons (the antiparticle
of the electron) in the cosmic ray signal, also believed to originate from dark matter interactions. ATIC cannot distinguish between electrons and positrons, so it is possible that the two results are compatible.[1]

On the other hand, in November 2008 the Milagro experiment reported cosmic ray "hotspots" in the sky, possibly supporting astrophysical objects as sources of the surplus electrons.[5] In May 2009, observations by the Fermi space telescope were reported which did not support the spike of high-energy electrons seen by ATIC.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b Overbye, Dennis (25 November 2008). "A Whisper, Perhaps, From the Universe's Dark Side". The New York Times.
  2. ^ Instrument description Archived 28 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine, LSU Space Science group. Retrieved 23 November 2008
  3. ^ a b Mysterious electrons may be sign of dark matter, New Scientist, 19 November 2008
  4. ^ Discovered: Cosmic Rays from a Mysterious, Nearby Object Archived 5 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine, NASA, 19 November 2008
  5. ^ Cosmic-ray hot spots puzzle researchers, Nature News, 26 November 2008
  6. ^ Dark matter signal recedes into the shadows, New Scientist, 7 May 2009

External links

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