Extensive air shower Monte Carlo modeling at the ground and aircraft flight altitude in the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly and comparison with neutron measurements

Abstract

Modeling cosmic-ray-induced particle fluxes in the atmosphere is very important for developing many applications in aeronautics, space weather and on ground experimental arrangements. There is a lack of measurements and modeling at flight altitude and on ground in the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly. In this work we have developed an application based on the Geant4 toolkit called gPartAt that is aimed at the analysis of extensive air shower particle spectra. Another application has been developed using the MCNPX code with the same approach in order to evaluate the models and nuclear data libraries used in each application. Moreover, measurements were performed to determine the ambient dose equivalent rate of neutrons at flight altitude in different regions and dates in the Brazilian airspace; these results were also compared with the simulations.The results from simulations of the neutron spectra at ground level were also compared to data from a neutron spectrometer in operation since February 2015 at the Pico dos Dias Observatory in Brazil, at 1864m above sea level, as part of a collaboration between the Institute for Advanced Studies (IEAv) and the French Aerospace Lab (ONERA). This measuring station is being operated with support from the National Astrophysics Laboratory (LNA). The modeling approaches were also compared to the AtmoRad computational platform, QARM, EXPACS codes and with measurements of the neutron spectrum taken in 2009 at the Pico dos Dias Observatory.