Main physics results of the ARGO-YBJ experiment

Abstract

The ARGO-YBJ experiment has been in stable data taking for more than 5 years at the YangBaJing Cosmic Ray Observatory (Tibet, P. R. China, 4300 m a.s.l., 606 g/cm2). With a duty-cycle greater than 86%, the detector collected about 5 × 1011 events in a wide energy range, from few hundred GeV up to about 10 PeV. High altitude location and detector features make ARGO-YBJ capable of investigating a wide range of important issues in Cosmic Ray and Astroparticle Physics by imaging the front of atmospheric showers with unprecedented resolution and detail. In this paper, the main physics results in gamma-ray astronomy and in cosmic ray physics are summarized.