Speaker
Pierre Salati
Description
Weakly interacting and massive particles (WIMP) have been suggested
as plausible candidates to the astronomical dark matter (DM). Should these
putative species exist, they would continuously annihilate within the Milky
Way halo and yield rare antimatter particles such as antiprotons. The latter
are already manufactured in the Galactic disc where high-energy cosmic ray
protons and helium nuclei collide on the interstellar gas.
I will review how well we understand that astrophysical component which
is the natural background to a DM antiproton signal. I will also present the
current and near-future experimental situation. I will finally discuss what are
the theoretical expectations for observing a distortion in the antiproton
spectrum at the Earth should WIMPs float around, and what limits on their
properties can already be drawn from the current measurements.
