A mobile detector for measurements of the atmospheric muon flux

Abstract

Measurements of the underground atmospheric muon flux are important in order to determine accurately the overburden in mwe (meter water equivalent) of an un- derground laboratory for appreciating which kind of exper- iments are feasible for that location. Slanic- Prohava is one of the 7 possible locations for the European large un- derground experiment LAGUNA (Large Apparatus studying Grand Unification and Neutrino Astrophysics). A mobile de- vice consisting of 2 scintillator plates ( 0.9 m 2 , each) one above the other and measuring in coincidence, was set-up for determining the muon flux. The detector it is installed on a van which facilitates measurements on different positions at the surface or in the underground and it is in operation since autumn 2009. The measurements of muon fluxes pre- sented in this contribution have been performed in the under- ground salt mine Slanic-Prahova, Romania, where IFIN-HH has built a low radiation level laboratory, and at the surface on different sites of Romania, at different elevations from 0 m a.s.l up to 655 m a.s.l. Based on our measurements we can say that Slanic site is a feasible location for LAGUNA in Unirea salt mine at a water equivalent depth of 600 mwe. The results have been compared with Monte-Carlo simula- tions performed with the simulation codes CORSIKA and MUSIC.