CR electrons and positrons: what we have learned in the latest three years and future perspectives

Abstract

After the PAMELA finding of an increasing positron fraction above 10 GeV, the experimental evidence for the presence of a new electron and positron spectral component in the cosmic ray zoo has been recently confirmed by Fermi-LAT. We show that a simple phenomenological model which assumes the presence of a primary electron and positron extra component allows a consistent description of all available data sets. We then describe the most relevant astrophysical uncertainties which still prevent to determine the electron+positron source properties from those data and the perspectives of forthcoming experiments.

10 pages, 4 figures, Proceeding of the 3th ICATPP Conference on Astroparticle, Particle, Space Physics and Detectors for Physics Applications, Villa Olmo (Como), 3-7 October 2011)