Measurement of anti-.sup.3./sup.He nuclei absorption in matter and impact on their propagation in the Galaxy

0574104 - ÚJF 2024 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Acharya, S. - Adamová, Dagmar - Adler, A. - Adolfsson, J. - Bielčík, J. - Bielčíková, Jana - Broz, M. - Contreras, J. G. - Fialová, V. - Grund, D. - Herman, T. - Horák, D. - Isakov, Artem - Kotliarov, Artem - Krupová, D. M. - Křížek, Filip - Křížková Gajdošová, K. - Kushpil, Svetlana - Lavička, R. - Petráček, V. - Šafařík, K. - Torres, S. R. - Závada, Petr … Total 1023 authors
Measurement of anti-³He nuclei absorption in matter and impact on their propagation in the Galaxy.
Nature Physics. Roč. 19, č. 1 (2023), s. 61-71. ISSN 1745-2473. E-ISSN 1745-2481
Research Infrastructure: CERN-CZ III - 90240; CERN-CZ II - 90104
Institutional support: RVO:61389005 ; RVO:68378271
Keywords : ALICE collaboration * light antinuclei * cross section
OECD category: Nuclear physics; Particles and field physics (FZU-D)
Impact factor: 19.5, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01804-8

In our Galaxy, light antinuclei composed of antiprotons and antineutrons can be produced through high-energy cosmic-ray collisions with the interstellar medium or could also originate from the annihilation of dark-matter particles that have not yet been discovered. On Earth, the only way to produce and study antinuclei with high precision is to create them at high-energy particle accelerators. Although the properties of elementary antiparticles have been studied in detail, the knowledge of the interaction of light antinuclei with matter is limited. We determine the disappearance probability of (3)(He) over bar when it encounters matter particles and annihilates or disintegrates within the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. We extract the inelastic interaction cross section, which is then used as an input to the calculations of the transparency of our Galaxy to the propagation of (3)(He) over bar stemming from dark-matter annihilation and cosmic-ray interactions within the interstellar medium. For a specific dark-matter profile, we estimate a transparency of about 50%, whereas it varies with increasing (3)(He) over bar momentum from 25% to 90% for cosmic-ray sources. The results indicate that (3)(He) over bar nuclei can travel long distances in the Galaxy, and can be used to study cosmic-ray interactions and dark-matter annihilation.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0344461