Status and first results of the MURAVES experiment at Mt. Vesuvius

Abstract

The MURAVES experiment, whose acronym stands for MUon RAdiography of VESuvius, aims at the imaging of the internal structure of the summit of Mt. Vesuvius through muography, i.e. the absorption of muons naturally produced by cosmic rays. Though presently quiescent, this volcano carries a dramatic hazard in its highly populated surroundings. The challenging measurement of the rock density distribution in its summit by muography, in conjunction with data from other geophysical techniques, can help the modeling of possible eruptive dynamics. The MURAVES apparatus consists of an array of three independent and identical muon trackers, two pointing towards the volcano and one towards the free sky (to collect reference data), each of them made of four 1m2 active area XY tracking planes made of plastic scintillators. In each muon tracker, a 60 cm thick lead wall between the two downstream planes ensures rejection of background from low energy muons. MURAVES has been acquiring data since 2019. We will present a description of the muon trackers, as well as the preliminary results from the analysis of a sub-set of the data samples collected thus far, focusing in particular on an early measurement of density asymmetry.In addition, we will report on a number of simulation studies that allow us to investigate the effects of the experimental constraints and to compare our simulated data with the actual observations.