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Production cross sections of cosmic antiprotons in the light of new data from the NA61 and LHCb experiments

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D.
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Univ. di Torino, Torino (Italy). Dipt. di Fisica; National Inst. of Nuclear Physics (INFN), Torino (Italy); RWTH Aachen Univ. (Germany). Inst. for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology
  2. Univ. di Torino, Torino (Italy). Dipt. di Fisica; National Inst. of Nuclear Physics (INFN), Torino (Italy)
  3. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). W.W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Dept. of Physics; SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
The cosmic-ray flux of antiprotons is measured with high precision by the space-borne particle spectrometers AMS-02. Its interpretation requires a correct description of the dominant production process for antiprotons in our Galaxy, namely, the interaction of cosmic-ray proton and helium with the interstellar medium. In light of new cross section measurements by the NA61 experiment of p + p → $$\bar{p}$$ + X and the first ever measurement of p + He → $$\bar{p}$$ + X by the LHCb experiment, we update the parametrization of proton-proton and proton-nucleon cross sections. We find that the LHCb p He data constrain a shape for the cross section at high energies and show for the first time how well the rescaling from the p p channel applies to a helium target. By using p p , p He and p C data we estimate the uncertainty on the Lorentz invariant cross section for p + He → $$\bar{p}$$+ X . We use these new cross sections to compute the source term for all the production channels, considering also nuclei heavier than He both in cosmic rays and the interstellar medium. The uncertainties on the total source term are up to ± 20 % and slightly increase below antiproton energies of 5 GeV. This uncertainty is dominated by the p + p → $$\bar{p}$$ + X cross section, which translates into all channels since we derive them using the $pp$ cross sections. In conclusion, the cross sections to calculate the source spectra from all relevant cosmic-ray isotopes are provided in Supplemental Material. We finally quantify the necessity of new data on antiproton production cross sections, and pin down the kinematic parameter space which should be covered by future data.
Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR); National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1458453
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D., Journal Name: Physical Review. D. Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 97; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (10)

A fixed-target programme at the LHC: Physics case and projected performances for heavy-ion, hadron, spin and astroparticle studies journal May 2021
Report from Working Group 5 text January 2019
Status, Challenges and Directions in Indirect Dark Matter Searches journal October 2020
Measurement of antiproton production in ${\rm p He}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=110$ GeV text January 2018
Cosmic-ray propagation with DRAGON2: II. Nuclear interactions with the interstellar gas journal July 2018
Effects of re-acceleration and source grammage on secondary cosmic rays spectra journal July 2019
Investigating the dark matter signal in the cosmic ray antiproton flux with the machine learning method journal November 2019
Scrutinizing the evidence for dark matter in cosmic-ray antiprotons journal May 2019
Measurement of Antiproton Production in p − He Collisions at s NN = 110     GeV journal November 2018
Scrutinizing the evidence for dark matter in cosmic-ray antiprotons text January 2019

Figures / Tables (22)

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