Measurement of the cosmic positrons' spectrum with the experiment AMS-02 and search for exotic signals

The AMS-02 experiment is a particle detector that will be installed on the international space station (ISS) in 2008 for at least 3 years. The physics motivations are cosmic ray measurements (e-, e+, p, p-bar, γ, He, C,...), antimatter search for Z>2 and gamma ray studies from GeV to TeV. The HEAT experiment has measured positron spectrum up to 30 GeV, and shown a possible distortion around 8 GeV, which can be interpreted as a dark matter signal. The cosmic positrons spectrum measurement needs positron/proton separation close to 105, which will be obtained combining all AMS-02 sub-detectors. A neural network analysis has been developed on test beam data taken in 2002, to estimate the electron/proton rejection for the electromagnetic calorimeter. This technique, based on discriminant variables and which was tuned on data, was used to determine the positron acceptance combining other sub-detectors information. The number of conventional positrons can be estimated and AMS ability to detect cold dark matter signals has been determined. This study was presented for signal from supersymmetric neutralinos and from Kaluza-Klein stable particles. Fluxes are naturally too low to be detected. Signal can be enhanced thanks to local dark matter over-densities which appear naturally in galaxy formation models. A model for those over-densities has been tuned and presented. (author)