Search for TeV-Antiprotons in Space from the Shadowing of Cosmic Rays by the Moon with the L3+C Detector

A search for antiprotons in the primary cosmic ray flux has been performed by observing the Moon shadow with the muon data collected by the L3+C experiment at CERN during 1999 and 2000. The angular resolution of the detector and its dependences on the muon energy and zenith angle are obtained at the event level with a Monte Carlo simulation and the analysis of real double muon data using a maximum likelihood method. The Moon shadow effect is observed in three muon momentum bands > 100GeV/c, 65 - 100 GeV/c and 30 - 65 GeV/c with a significance of 7.0 cr, 5.8 cr and 5.2 cr respectively. Two dimensional maximum likelihood analyses are performed, both with binned data and unbinned data. The unbinned method gives a smaller uncertainty on the measurement of the antiproton to proton ratio. For a muon momentum cut at 70 GeV/c, the antiproton to proton ratio is measured to be -0.12 + 0.11 and an upper limit of this ratio is estimated to be 0.08 (at 90% confidence level) for primary energies in the range 0.8 TeV to 2.4 TeV. In addition, the above mentioned angular resolution is confirmed by the Moon shadow observation and the pointing precision of the detector is determined to be better than 0.1 °.