Indirect search for dark matter with AMS in positrons, gamma and antiprotons channels

Abstract

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), to be installed on the International Space Station, will provide data on cosmic radiations in a large energy range. The main physics goals in the astroparticle domain are the antimatter and the dark matter searches. Dark matter should be composed of non baryonic weakly interacting massive particles, a good candidate being the lightest SUSY particle in R-parity conserving models. As a prototype for the AMS-02 experiment, the AMS-01 particle spectrometer was flown on the Space Shuttle Discovery in near earth orbit for a ten day mission in June 1998. The direct identification of positrons in AMS-01 was limited to energies below 3 GeV due to the vast proton background and the characteristics of the subdetectors, but the sensitivity towards higher energies (up to 40 GeV) was extended by identifying positrons through the conversion of bremsstrahlung photons. AMS-02 will greatly improve the accuracy on the positron spectrum, which will be measured up to 300 GeV, together with the antiproton and $γ$-ray flux, thus providing a unique chance to measure all relevant neutralino decay channels with the same experiment.