The influence of the geomagnetic field and of the uncertainties in the primary spectrum on the development of the muon flux in the atmosphere

Abstract

In this paper we study the sensitivity of the flux of atmospheric muons to uncertainties in the primary cosmic ray spectrum and to the treatment of the geomagnetic field in a calculation. We use the air shower simulation program AIRES to make the calculation for two different primary spectra and under several approximations to the propagation of charged particles in the geomagnetic field. The results illustrate the importance of accurate modelling of the geomagnetic field effects. We propose a high and a low fit of the proton and helium fluxes, and calculate the muon fluxes with these different inputs. Comparison with measurements of the muon flux by the CAPRICE experiment shows a slight preference for the higher primary cosmic ray flux parametrization.

arXiv comment24 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.D

References in corpus (8)

• Evidence for oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos
• Measurement of the atmospheric neutrino flavour composition in Soudan 2
• Precise Measurement of Cosmic-Ray Proton and Helium Spectra with the BESS Spectrometer
• Extensive Air Shower Simulations at the Highest Energies
• The Cosmic-Ray Proton and Helium Spectra measured with the CAPRICE98 balloon experiment
• Measurement of the flux of atmospheric muons with the CAPRICE94 apparatus
• Air Showers and Geomagnetic Field
• Flux of atmospheric muons: Comparison between AIRES simulations and CAPRICE98 data

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Muon Simulations for Super-Kamiokande, KamLAND and CHOOZ
• Hunting long-lived gluinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Muon Charge Information from Geomagnetic Deviation in Inclined Extensive Air Showers