Observation of seasonal variation of atmospheric multiple-muon events in the MINOS Near and Far Detectors

Abstract

We report the first observation of seasonal modulations in the rates of cosmic ray multiple-muon events at two underground sites, the MINOS Near Detector with an overburden of 225 mwe, and the MINOS Far Detector site at 2100 mwe. At the deeper site, multiple-muon events with muons separated by more than 8 m exhibit a seasonal rate that peaks during the summer, similar to that of single-muon events. In contrast and unexpectedly, the rate of multiple-muon events with muons separated by less than 5-8 m, and the rate of multiple-muon events in the smaller, shallower Near Detector, exhibit a seasonal rate modulation that peaks in the winter.

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• Improved Modelling of Detector Response Effects in Phonon-based Crystal Detectors used for Dark Matter Searches
• First demonstration of a TES based cryogenic Li${}_2$MoO${}_4$detector for neutrinoless double beta decay search
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• Explanation of the seasonal variation of cosmic multiple muon events observed with the NOvA Near Detector
• Precision of analytical approximations in calculations of Atmospheric Leptons