Thursday, April 25, 2013, 16:00
WHGA/Auditorium
M. Pohl, Université de Genève
Abstract:
The AMS-02 cosmic ray observatory is a state of the art particle detector
for long-term observation of cosmic rays in the GeV to TeV region. It
consists of a magnetic spectrometer, high performance particle identification
systems and a calorimeter. It has been launched successfully on May 16, 2011
on board of Space Shuttle Endeavor and installed on the International Space
Station (ISS) shortly afterwards. It is since then taking data continuously.
The commissioning phase of the detector is finished, all subsystems are up and
running and perform according to specifications. Detector operation is performed
from the Payload Operations and Control Center at CERN. Science data are timely
transmitted to ground, stored and analyzed using the Science Operation Center,
also installed at CERN. I will present in-flight experience with the detector
and its subsystems, as well as first results concerning the fractional flux of
positrons in cosmic rays, which shows a so far unexplained rise with energy.