Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

Other

· More projects in this section

Particle Astrophysics (P/300328)

R GARCÍA LOPEZ

M. Garczarczyk , A. Herrero Davó, J.M. Rodríguez Espinosa, A. Diago Ortega, K. Berger, R. Clavero Jiménez, E. Colombo

C. Delgado Méndez (CIEMAT, Spain); M. Gaug (Barcelona)

Introduction

The members of the Particle Astrophysics Group of the IAC participate actively in three large international collaborations o high-energy astrophysics: AMS (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer), the Cherenkov radiation telescopes MAGIC I and II, and the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA).

AMS is a particle detector designed to operate in space, onboard the International Space Station. It is expected to be installed on the station between April and July, 2011, and will operate during its lifetime. It is aimed at carrying out a high precision and high statistics study of the spectrum and composition of primary cosmic rays within a wide range of energies, as well as to look for antimatter and dark matter in an indirect way.

Design and construction of AMS is the responsibility of an international collaboration led by the Nobel Prize Laureate Samuel C.C. Ting (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), with participating institutes from China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom and USA.

Within the AMS experiment, we collaborate with CIEMAT (Madrid) in the characterization of the Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH) in those aspects related to its capabilities for chemical and isotopical identification of light elements in the cosmic rays, and we have also manufactured the electronics crates for the detector.

Our Group is also part of the MAGIC Collaboration. This collaboration is integrated by 20 research institutes and university departments from Armenia, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and USA. The collaboration comprises two 17m diameter telescopes, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, designed to measure the Cherenkov radiation associated to atmospheric showers from very high energy gamma rays.

CTA is a major international collaboration for building two large Cherenkov observatories at North and South Hemispheres, and the Teide Observatory in Tenerife is a candidate to host one of those.