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R. Sina (University of Maryland), V.S. Ptuskin (IZMIRAN, Russia), E.S. Seo (University of Maryland)
It is now established that dark matter permeates much of the Galactic halo. A possible candidate, which has been favored by the particle physics community, is the massive particle, neutralino, predicted by the supersymmetric extension of the standard model. These particles annihilating in the halo are expected to produce antiprotons and contribute to the cosmic-ray antiproton flux. By looking at the observed spectrum of antiprotons in cosmic rays and comparing it with the spectrum calculated from cosmic-ray interactions during propagation, it is thus possible, in principle, to set an upper limit to the neutralino density and test the hypothesis that they constitute the major block of dark matter. In this paper we will discuss the feasibility of such test.
This work has been supported by NASA grant NAG5-5204.