Cosmic ray angular distribution employing plastic scintillation detectors and flash-ADC/FPGA-based readout systems

Abstract

Abstract It is known that secondary cosmic rays are high energetic particles which are products of shower particles, when primary cosmic rays from outer space hit the atmosphere molecules. Many studies of cosmic rays show that cosmic flux depends on the depth of atmosphere. At ground level, most secondary cosmic rays are muons, a type of charged particle, and have angular dependence. The purpose of this article was to develop the telescope with two plastic scintillation detectors to investigate the angular distribution of cosmic rays at ground level. Directions of investigation were carried out vertical, 45-degree oblique and horizontal directions with respect to earth surface, approximately from North to South. Electronic readout system was developed from Flash Analog Digital Converter (Flash-ADC) of 8 bits-250Ms/sec, and Embedded Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based trigger. LabVIEWTM interface was written for controlling trigger system and taking data. For each direction measurement, the deposited energy spectra in the scintillators were obtained. The interest of cosmic-ray events was analyzed for counting. Angular distribution was obtained quantitatively. The experiment has been done at University of Science-HCMC.