A seven-tonne particle detector due to fly to the International Space Station in July will spend the summer on the ground owing to a technical fault in the superconducting magnet at its core. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) will be refitted with a conventional permanent magnet, a change that could mean the detector is less likely to make the breakthrough that would seal its place in scientific history - the discovery of dark matter. Read more
Space scientists go in search of the definite particle
Using a hair-dryer's worth of solar power, a sophisticated device will hitch a lift on one of the last-ever space shuttles to try to answer key questions about the universe. Read more
One of the most exciting scientific instruments ever built, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), arrived at ESA's Test Centre in the Netherlands for testing before being launched on the Space Shuttle to the ISS this July. Read more
The crowning glory of the International Space Station has nothing to do with preparing humans to live on the moon or finding a cure for Salmonella. It's a particle detector designed to hunt for an antimatter universe. This week, NASA resumes work to shutter the shuttle program at the end of 2010, but it is planning for one extra mission to ferry the 7.5-ton detector, known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, to the station in late 2010.
A huge magnet destined for outer space left Oxfordshire this week with a police escort. The £20m superconducting magnet, which weighs three tonnes, is a vital part of a scientific instrument which aims to uncover some of the secrets of the universe. It was made by Scientific Magnetics, based at the Culham Science Centre, for the £1m Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a collaboration of 600 scientists and engineers from Europe, the US, China, Taiwan and Korea.
Title: Particle identification with the AMS-02 RICH detector: search for dark matter with antideuterons Authors: Luísa Arruda, Fernando Barão, Rui Pereira
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), whose final version AMS-02 is to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS) for at least 3 years, is a detector designed to measure charged cosmic ray spectra with energies up to the TeV region and with high energy photon detection capability up to a few hundred GeV, using state-of-the art particle identification techniques. It is equipped with several subsystems, one of which is a proximity focusing Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector equipped with a dual radiator (aerogel+NaF), a lateral conical mirror and a detection plane made of 680 photomultipliers and light guides, enabling precise measurements of particle electric charge and velocity (Delta beta / beta ~ 10^-3 and 10^-4 for Z=1 and Z=10-20, respectively) at kinetic energies of a few GeV/nucleon. Combining velocity measurements with data on particle rigidity from the AMS-02 Tracker (Delta R / R ~ 2% for R=1-10 GV) it is possible to obtain a reliable measurement for particle mass. One of the main topics of the AMS-02 physics program is the search for indirect signatures of dark matter. Experimental data indicate that dark, non-baryonic matter of unknown composition is much more abundant than baryonic matter, accounting for a large fraction of the energy content of the Universe. Apart from antideuterons produced in cosmic-ray propagation, the annihilation of dark matter will produce additional antideuteron fluxes. Detailed Monte Carlo simulations of AMS-02 have been used to evaluate the detector's performance for mass separation, a key issue for anti-D/anti-p separation. Results of these studies are presented.
Title: Astrophysics with the AMS-02 experiment Authors: AMS Collaboration: Rui Pereira
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), whose final version AMS-02 is to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS) for at least 3 years, is a detector designed to measure charged cosmic ray spectra with energies up to the TeV region and with high energy photon detection capability up to a few hundred GeV, using state-of-the-art particle identification techniques. Following the successful flight of the detector prototype (AMS-01) aboard the space shuttle, AMS-02 is expected to provide a significant improvement on the current knowledge of the elemental and isotopic composition of hadronic cosmic rays due to its long exposure time (minimum of 3 years) and large acceptance (0.5 m² sr) which will enable it to collect a total statistics of more than 10^10 nuclei. Detector capabilities for charge, velocity and mass identification, estimated from ion beam tests and detailed Monte Carlo simulations, are presented. Relevant issues in cosmic ray astrophysics addressed by AMS-02, including the test of cosmic ray propagation models, galactic confinement times and the influence of solar cycles on the local cosmic ray flux, are briefly discussed.
An experiment to search in space for dark matter, missing matter & antimatter on the international space station.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station Author: Carmen Palomares The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is a particle physics detector designed to operate on the International Space Station (ISS). The aim of AMS is the direct detection of charged particles in the rigidity range from 0.5 GV to few Teravolts to perform high statistics studies of cosmic rays in space and search for antimatter and dark matter. This will be possible because of the large geometrical acceptance, a very accurate energy determination and very precise particle identification through redundant measurements of its energy, velocity and electric charge. AMS is scheduled to be placed on the ISS at the beginning of 2008 for a 3 year exposure. Read More (PDF)