ATIC Article: 2009 TopCites: 50 most-cited articles in high-energy physics

Each year the SPIRES database team compiles a list of the most-cited research articles in high-energy physics. Here we present the most recent addition to this collection.

#24. "An excess of cosmic ray electrons at energies of 300.800 GeV" by J. Chang, J.H. Adams, H.S. Ahn, G.L. Bashindzhagyan, M. Christl, O. Ganel, T.G. Guzik, J. Isbert, K.C. Kim, E.N. Kuznetsov, M.I. Panasyuk, A.D. Panov, W.K.H. Schmidt, E.S. Seo, N.V. Sokolskaya, J.W. Watts, J.P. Wefel, J. Wu, V.I. Zatsepin (Purple Mountain Observatory & Lindau, Max Planck Institute & NASA, Marshall & Maryland University & Moscow State University & Louisiana State University). Published in Nature 456:362-365,2008 [311 total citations in SPIRES]

Click Here for the full article.

ATIC Article: AIP Top 10 Stories of 2008

The American Institute of Physics has selected ATIC's article in Nature (20 Nov) as one of the 10 Top Physics Stories of the Year.  Click here to read more.

ATIC Article listed as a Physics Today Favorite for December 2008

The ATIC article has been listed as a Physics Today Favorite for December 2008. Click here to read more.

ATIC makes National News.

A Brand new ATIC paper to be released Nov 20, 2008 in the journal ,Nature, the article discusses exciting new implications due to the excess electrons from a potentially undiscovered near-Earth energy source .  To read the entire article please click here.

For additional stories about this new paper please check out the following links.

1. Nature Article and Supplementary Information
2. Nature - Astrophysics: A message from the dark side
3. Nature - Author's Abstractions
4. Nature - Electron 'bump' may confirm dark matter
5. LSU News - LSU Researchers Announce Mysterious Source of High Energy Cosmic Radiation
6. China View - New discovery may change understanding of universe
7. NASA - Mysterious Source of High-Energy Cosmic Radiation Discovered
8. Science@NASA - Discovered: Cosmic Rays from a Mysterious, Nearby Object 
9. National Geographic - Dark Matter Proof Found Over Antarctica?
10. New Scientist - Mysterious electrons may be sign of dark matter
11. Red Orbit - Cosmic Rays Found Coming From Mysterious, Nearby Object 
12. Science News Daily - Mysterious Source of High-Energy Cosmic Radiation Discovered  
13. Space.com - Cosmic Rays Might Come from Dark Matter
14. CBS Market Watch - Mysterious Source of High-Energy Cosmic Radiation Discovered
15. Newsblaze.com
16. Earthtimes.org
17. Forbes.com 
18. Scientific American - Antarctic balloon on the trail of dark matter?
19. Wired.com - Physicists Find Dark Matter, or Something Even More Strange
20. Baton Rouge Advocate - LSU plays key role in cosmic research
21. World Science  - Signs of dark matter found?
22. Reuters.com - Clump of dark matter may loom near solar system
23. Discover.com - Something powerful lurks nearby
24. MSNBC.com - Scientists spot hints of dark-matter blast

ATIC Terminated at 1/15/07 00:30:31Z

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   The ATIC balloon flight program will concentrate on measuring the cosmic ray proton and helium spectra from below 5 x 10¹⁰ eV to more than 10¹⁴ eV, with statistical accuracy better than 30% at the highest energy. This unique coverage, more than three decades in energy with a single instrument, will enable us to investigate the spectral difference between hydrogen and helium, and identify any spectral breaks over a broad energy range. In addition, ATIC will fill an existing gap in measurements of the proton/alpha ratio between observations below 100 GeV and the highest emulsion chamber energies. Concurrently, ATIC will measure the spectra of nuclei up to iron, with individual element resolution and superior energy resolution.  

See Science for more on the experiment objectives

  To achieve these scientific objectives ATIC will need a series of Long Duration Balloon (LDB) flights.  During these flights a large volume (10's of millions of cubic feet) Helium filled balloon will carry the ATIC experiment to the very edge of space (about 120,000 feet) for a period of time lasting from 10 to 15 days.   The first of these flights will take place during December, 2000 when the ATIC balloon payload is launched from McMurdo, Antarctica

See Instrument for more on how the experiment works

   The ATIC Classroom includes age appropriate lessons for middle and high school students which make use of data returned from the ATIC instrument during its LDB flight.  In addition, video reports from the 2000-2001 flight provide students with an idea of what we will be doing "on the ice" this year as well as how scientists live and work in Antarctica.

Track LDB experiments during their flight