Cosmic AntiParticle Ring Imaging Cerenkov Experiment

%RE2A \\ \\ %title \\ \\The CAPRICE experiment studies antimatter and light nuclei in the cosmic rays as well as muons in the atmosphere. The experiment is performed with the spectrometer shown in the figure which is lifted by a balloon to an altitude of 35-40 km. At this altitude less than half a percent of the atmosphere is above the 2 ton spectrometer which makes it possible to study the cosmic ray flux without too much background from atmospherically produced particles. The spectrometer includes time-of-flight scintillators, a gaseous RICH counter, a drift chamber tracker and a silicon electromagnetic calorimeter. The important feature of the spectrometer is to discriminate between different particles.\\ \\ The experiment aims at measuring the flux of the antiparticles (antiprotons and positrons) above about 5 GeV and relate the fluxes to models including exotic production of antiparticles like dark matter supersymmetric particles. The flux of muons is measured during descent of the balloon through the atmosphere. These flux measurements are of importance for the calculations of the atmospheric neutrino flux and therefore for the interpretation of the atmospheric neutrino anomaly.