The ARGO-YBJ contribution to the cosmic ray physics

The ARGO-YBJ experiment is in stable data taking since November 2007 at the YangBaJing Cosmic Ray Laboratory (Tibet, P.R.China, 4300 m a.s.l.). It exploits a full coverage and high altitude approach to the small air showers detection. The detector is made of a single layer of RPCs operated in streamer mode, fully instrumenting a central carpet of about 5700 m2, then a guard ring extends the partially instrumented area to about 11,000 m2. The large field of view (∼ 2 sr) and the high duty cycle (⩾ 85%) allow a continuous monitoring of the sky in the declination band from -10°to 70°; the detector operates with an energy threshold of a few hundred GeV. Recent achieved results will be reported.