ANTIMATTER MEASUREMENTS WITH HEAT AND THE DARK MATTER CONNECTION
The High Energy Antimatter Telescope is a magnet spectrometer complemented by an array of particle detectors, flown on high altitude balloons. With it, we have measured the positron content of the cosmic-ray flux at energies between 1 and 50 GeV, and the antiproton content from 4 to 50 GeV. We have found both antiparticle species to be substantially in agreement with models of secondary antimatter production in interstellar collisions of hadronic cosmic rays. The positron measurements however seem to consistently indicate the possibility of a small primary antimatter component. Just such a contribution has been predicted to result from the annihilation of dark matter particles in the galactic halo. The HEAT measurements are described here, and their connection with SUSY dark matter is explored.
