Speaker
Prof.
Philip Schreiner
(Benedictine University)
Description
Seasonal variations of cosmic ray muons have been well-measured by
a number of underground experiments at a variety of overburdens and
it has been found that the rate of muons increases in the summer and
decreases in the winter. This is understood from the properties of
the atmosphere as the temperature varies. But with
large statistics the seasonal variation of multiple muons was measured
in the MINOS ND (225 mwe) and the MINOS FD (2100 mwe).
The rates increase in the winter and decrease in the summer, opposite
to the result for single muons. Several hypotheses
for this unexpected result were considered, but the effect is not
currently explained. New data from the NOvA ND (225 mwe) will be
used to study the situation further.
Primary author
Maury Goodman
(Argonne)
Co-authors
Prof.
Philip Schreiner
(Benedictine University)
Prof.
Ricardo Gomes
(Federal University of Goias - UFG)
Ms
Stefano Castro Tognini
(Federal University of Goias)