Speaker
Description
Direct measurements of cosmic rays are unique probes for investigating astroparticle propagation and acceleration in the Galaxy and searching for dark matter signatures. The Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) has been installed on the International Space Station with the main goals of detecting electron, proton, and nuclei spectra. The detector has been continuously operating since 2015 without significant interruptions in data collection. The instrument consists of a plastic charge detector, an imaging calorimeter with tracking capabilities and a total absorption calorimeter. This design allows excellent performance for electron measurements in terms of energy resolution and particle identification. Furthermore, protons, nuclei, and photons are accurately detected by CALET thanks to its general-purpose design. Since the first years of the mission, the collaboration has obtained relevant results regarding all the main goals of the experiment, making substantial contributions to cosmic ray observations.
The performance of the instrument and the main results obtained by CALET will be reported in this contribution. The recent paper about cosmic ray electrons observed up to an unexplored energy range will also be discussed
