Speaker
Description
The atmospheric muon flux has been measured by several experiments mainly between the 60s and 80s of the last century. Nonetheless the study of these particles is still of interest at least in two different fields of physics research. The first one is related to neutrino physics. A precise measurement of the parameters that characterize the phenomenon of oscillation between the three families of neutrinos known so far through the study of atmospheric neutrinos, requires an accurate estimation of the energy and angular spectra of these particles, that can be obtained in turn using detailed simulations calibrated with experimental measurements of atmospheric muons spectra. The second one is muon radiography, a geo-prospecting technique using atmospheric muons to produce radiographic representations of enormous volumes of materials and which requires the use of reliable simulations of the fluxes of atmospheric muons and their absorption inside materials.
Between the late 90s and the beginning of the 2000s, the INFN section of Florence and the Department of Physics of the University of Florence developed the ADAMO magnetic spectrometer, a test system for the development of the PAMELA satellite experiment. ADAMO was used in 2004 for a measurement of the inclusive momentum spectrum of cosmic rays at ground level at several zenith angles in the momentum interval between 100 MeV/c and 130 GeV/c. Results were presented at the 29th ICRC held in 2005 in Pune (India) [1].
The ACROMASS project, started in 2024, has been financed by INFN for the enhancement of the ADAMO spectrometer and to provide it with two auxiliary sub-detectors for particle identification (PID). The new apparatus will be used for measurements of atmospheric muons at different altitudes, latitudes and zenith angles in the momentum range between 100 MeV/c and 200 GeV/c and will also allow the study of the rarest charged components of cosmic rays at ground level.
References:
[1] L. Bonechi et al., "Development of the ADAMO detector: test with cosmic rays at different zenith angles", $29^{\mathrm{th}}$ International Cosmic Ray Conference Pune (2005) 9, 283–286
| Collaboration(s) | ACROMASS |
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