Investigate cosmic rays: Analysis of the air showers

Abstract

In this lab report, the concept of cosmic rays and their components that can be detected on the earth’s surface is introduced. In this experiment, four CosmicWatch muon detectors were used to detect the components of cosmic rays. This report describes the setup of the experiment as well as the method and algorithms used to filter the true signals of cosmic rays out of the background radioactive noises. Some process of the algorithm is visualized using histograms. The rate of air showers was found to be 0.151 mHz ± 0.022 mHz for a separation of 6.73 cm ± 0.08 cm, and 0.096 mHz ± 0.015 mHz for a separation of 13.5 cm ± 0.1 cm. Other sources of uncertainties are also analyzed in this report.