General antiparticle spectrometer (GAPS) is a planned experiment that will use a high-altitude balloon flying in Antarctica to look for antideuteron particles from outer space cosmic rays,^[1] in an effort to search for dark matter. Anti-deuterons could perhaps be produced by the annihilation of hypothetical weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).^[2] The goal of the GAPS experiment is to capture anti-deuterons in a target material, to form an exotic atom in an excited state. The exotic atom would quickly decay, producing detectable X-rays energies with pion signature from nuclear annihilation.^[3]

The GAPS ground test was successfully using a particle accelerator at KEK in 2004 and 2005. The first high-altitude balloon test was done in June 2012 with six Si(Li) detectors.

GAPS team

The team includes:^[4]

• Columbia University T. Aramaki, C.J. Hailey (P.I.), N. Madden, K. Mori, Florian Gahbauer
• University of California, San Diego S.E. Boggs
• University of California, Los Angeles R.A. Ong, J. Zweerink, S. A. I. Mognet
• University of Hawaii P. Von Doetinchem
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory W.W. Craig
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency – Institute of Space & Astronautical Science, N. Bando, H. Fuke, T. Yoshida
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology K. Perez