http://arxiv.org/abs/2110.14152
Cosmic ray muons have emerged as a non-conventional high-energy radiation probe to monitor dense and large objects. Muons are the most abundant cosmic radiation on Earth, however, their flux at sea level is approximately 10,000/min-m2 much less than that of induced radiation, i.e., x-rays or electron beams. Cosmic ray muon flux varies with the particle incident angle and it is frequently approximated using a cosine-squared which can introduce large errors for high zenith angles. However, the cosmic ray muon flux depends on not only the zenith angle but also on the effective solid angle and the geometric characteristics of the detectors. Since the low muon flux typically results in long measurement times, an accurate estimation of the measurable muon counts is important for many muon applications. Here we propose a simple and versatile semi-empirical model to improve the accuracy in muon flux estimation at all zenith angles by incorporating the geometric parameters of detectors. We call this the Effective solid angle model. To demonstrate the functionality of our model, we compare with i) cosmic ray muon measurements, ii) the cosine-squared model, and iii) Monte-Carlo simulations. Our results show that the muon count rate estimation capability is significantly improved resulting in a reduced mean relative error from 30 % (for the cosine-squared model) to less than 15 % for the effective solid angle model. In addition, this model is simple enough and works universally for all detector geometries and configurations. By selecting an appropriate intensity correlation, the model can be easily extended to estimate muon flux at any altitude and underground level. Finally, a simple empirical correlation is derived in order to compute the expected cosmic ray muon counts in a single step.
J. Bae and S. Chatzidakis
Thu, 28 Oct 21
30/76
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