Cosmic rays at the Earth include a secondary component originating in
collisions of primary particles with the diffuse interstellar gas. The
secondary cosmic rays are relatively rare but carry important information on
the Galactic propagation of the primary particles. The secondary component
includes a small fraction of antimatter particles, positrons and antiprotons.
In addition, positrons and antiprotons may also come from unusual sources and
possibly provide insight into new physics. For instance, the annihilation of
heavy supersymmetric dark matter particles within the Galactic halo could lead
to positrons or antiprotons with distinctive energy signatures. With the
High-Energy Antimatter Telescope (HEAT) balloon-borne instrument, we have
measured the abundances of positrons and electrons at energies between 1 and 50
GeV. The data suggest that indeed a small additional antimatter component may
be present that cannot be explained by a purely secondary production mechanism.
Here we describe the signature of the effect and discuss its possible origin.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, epsfig and aasms4 macros required, to appear in
Astroparticle Physics (1999
