Moon Shadow by Cosmic Rays under the Influence of Geomagnetic Field and Search for Antiprotons at Multi-TeV Energies

TL;DR

This study observed the moon shadow caused by cosmic rays to investigate the presence of antiprotons at multi-TeV energies, setting upper limits on their flux ratio relative to protons.

Contribution

First to use moon shadow observations with Tibet-III array to constrain antiproton flux at multi-TeV energies.

Findings

Detected the moon shadow with high significance (~40σ).

No evidence of antiprotons was found in the data.

Set a 90% confidence upper limit of 7% on antiproton-to-proton flux ratio.

Abstract

We have observed the shadowing of galactic cosmic ray flux in the direction of the moon, the so-called moon shadow, using the Tibet-III air shower array operating at Yangbajing (4300 m a.s.l.) in Tibet since 1999. Almost all cosmic rays are positively charged; for that reason, they are bent by the geomagnetic field, thereby shifting the moon shadow westward. The cosmic rays will also produce an additional shadow in the eastward direction of the moon if cosmic rays contain negatively charged particles, such as antiprotons, with some fraction. We selected 1.5 x10^{10} air shower events with energy beyond about 3 TeV from the dataset observed by the Tibet-III air shower array and detected the moon shadow at $\sim 40 \sigma$ level. The center of the moon was detected in the direction away from the apparent center of the moon by 0.23$^\circ$ to the west. Based on these data and a full Monte Carlo simulation, we searched for the existence of the shadow produced by antiprotons at the multi-TeV energy region. No evidence of the existence of antiprotons was found in this energy region. We obtained the 90% confidence level upper limit of the flux ratio of antiprotons to protons as 7% at multi-TeV energies.