Continuously Measurements of Energy Spectra of Cosmic-Ray-induced-neutrons on the Concordia Antarctic Station for the period 2015-2021

Abstract

The CHINSTRAP (Continuous High-altitude Investigation of the Neutron Spectra for Terrestrial Radiation Antarctic Project) supported by the French Polar Agency (IPEV) aims at recording cosmic-ray (CR) induced-neutron spectra at the Concordia station since December 2015. The neutron spectrometer measures the neutron spectrum over a wide energy range from meV up to tens of GeV with a short time resolution. Several parameters can influence the measurement, including systematic and environmental effects such as the atmospheric pressure, the hydrometric environment close to the instrument and the atmospheric water vapor. This paper presents CR induced neutrons measurements analyses from 2015 to 2021 in Concordia, integrating corrections to take into account environmental and systematic effects. Long-term and short-term analyses are proposed, applied to count rate, fluxes and spectra. A last part investigates the contribution of modelling to data analyses and the ability to deduce the solar modulation from neutron spectra and the radiation field extrapolation using nuclear transport in atmosphere. An underlying objective is also to improve physical models allowing analyses of continuous and simultaneously measurements of CR induced neutrons spectra.