Determination of local muon flux using astronomical Charge Coupled Device

Abstract

As an abundant component of secondary cosmic rays at the Earth, muons carry significant data, such as information on mass number of primary particles producing extensive air showers. Anyhow, the total muon flux is an important observable in many phenomena, for example it is suggested that the muon flux is influenced by the level of solar activity at the Earth, while the neutrino anomaly and hadronic interaction models are studied through the products of muon decay. As a result a part of any cosmic ray detector is designed to observe muons, count and evaluate their energy and angular distribution. Thus a simple method was started in Research Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics of Maragha, University of Maragheh, to study the recorded tracks of particles by an astronomical CCD at 1478 m above sea level. To analyze recorded data and determine the muon flux from experiments, the flux of secondary atmospheric muons simulated with CORSIKA code (version 6.9) to study the muon angular distribution for our geographical location (latitude: 46.2534°E, longitude: 37.3892°N). The data used here were gathered during a ground run on 4 months (of 2016 and 2017), at Maragheh, Iran. The paper presents numerical results of the muon’s flux obtained at 1478 m above sea level which is in good agreement with expected values from simulations. The results were compared with experimental data from different experiments.