Speaker
Ivan De Mitri
(University of Salento and INFN - Lecce, Italy)
Description
Cosmic ray physics in the 10^12-10^15eV primary energy range is among the main scientific goals of the ARGO-YBJ experiment. The detector, located in the Cosmic Ray Observatory of Yangbajing (Tibet, China) at 4300m a.s.l., is a full coverage Extensive Air Shower array consisting of a carpet of Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) of about 7000m2. The apparatus layout, performance and location offer a unique opportunity for a detailed study of several characteristics of the hadronic component of the cosmic ray flux in an energy window marked by the transition from direct to indirect measurements. Moreover the analog readout of the RPC signals indeed provides a powerful tool to study, with unprecedented resolution and without saturation, the extensive air shower space-time structure down to few meters from its axis.
Results concerning the study of cosmic ray energy spectrum, mass composition and arrival directions will be given together with the search for an antiproton signal and the study of the interplanetary magnetic field. Furthermore, measurements of the proton air cross section and of the particle distributions close to the shower axis will be shown, thus giving new inputs, in the very forward region, to the hadronic interaction models currently used for understanding particle physics and cosmic rays up to the highest energies.
Primary author
Ivan De Mitri
(University of Salento and INFN - Lecce, Italy)
Co-author
ARGO-YBJ Collaboration
(Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Laboratory)
