Measurement of energy differential spectrum of cosmic-ray muons below 400 MeV

Abstract

Recent applications of cosmic-ray muons require accurate modeling of their flux at low-energy. However, no measurement has been reported below 400 MeV. Therefore, we developed a full-absorption muon energy spectrometer to obtain energy differential flux below 400 MeV. Because our main detector can measure muon energies below 75 MeV, an energy degradation method is adopted (using 5- and 20-cm thick lead blocks) to shift the sensitive energy range. Three measurements were performed (in the normal mode and the two energy degrading modes) for 10 and 11 days each. The measurement results were compared with an analytical cosmic-ray model, PARMA (the particle and heavy ion transport code system-based analytical radiation model in the atmosphere) and we found that the model can precisely predict the lower energy part of the flux.

arXiv comment8 pages, 15 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Atmospheric muons as an imaging tool
• The MIMA project. Design, construction and performances of a compact hodoscope for muon radiography applications in the context of Archaeology and geophysical prospections
• DIAPHANE: Muon tomography applied to volcanoes, civil engineering, archaelogy
• A portable muon telescope based on small and gas-tight Resistive Plate Chambers

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Cosmic rays for imaging cultural heritage objects
• Risk assessment of muon single-event effects for low-altitude aircraft