THE VATLY CHERENKOV DETECTOR AND ITS RESPONSE TO ELECTRONS AND MUONS
Main Article Content
Abstract
A replica of one of the 1660 Cherenkov detectors used in the ground array of the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory in Argentina has been constructed on the roof of the VATLY astrophysics laboratory in Ha Noi (Viet Nam). I report on cosmic ray measurements made using this detector, including its response to relativistic feed-through muons. Particular emphasis is on event pairs occurring within a small time window. Data include time autocorrelation and charge spectra of the detected signals. They are analyzed in terms of muon decays in the water volume of the Cherenkov tank and of the probability to detect two secondaries of a same shower. The former provide useful information on the response of the detector to small signals. The latter measure the width of the lateral distribution functions of extensive air showers in the TeV region.
Article Details
Keywords
Cosmic ray
References
P.N. Dong, The Cherenkov counters of the VATLY Laboratory, Master thesis presented to the Hanoi University of Technology, Vietnam National University, 2006.
N.T. Thao, The detection of extensive air showers in Hanoi, Master thesis presented to the Hanoi University of Sciences, Vietnam National University, 2007.
[2] X. Bertou, Proceedings of the 28th ICRC (Tsukuba), 2003;
X. Bertou, Calibration of the surface array of the Pierre Auger Observatory, NIMPRA 568, 2006, p839.
[3] N.T. Thao, Extensive air showers in Hanoi: a long term study of the event rate and of the muon to electron ratio, PhD thesis will be presented to the Institute Of Physics, 2012-2013.
[4] P.T. Nhung, Contribution to the study of ultra high energy showers using the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory, PhD thesis presented to the Université Paris VI-UPMC, 2009.
[5] P.N. Dinh et al., Measurement of the vertical cosmic muon flux in a region of large rigidity cutoff, Nucl. Phys. 627B, 2002, p.29.
P.N. Dinh et al., Measurement of the zenith angle distribution of the cosmic muon flux in Hanoi, Nucl. Phys. 661B, 2003, p.3.
P.N. Dinh et al., Measurement of the east-west asymmetry of the cosmic muon flux in Hanoi, Nucl. Phys. 678B, 2004, p.3
[6] M. P. de Pascale et al., Absolute spectrum and charge ratio of cosmic ray muons in the energy region from 0.2 GeV to 100 GeV from 600 m above sea level, J. Geophys. Res., 98A3 (1993) 3501.
[7] D. F. Measday, The Nuclear Physics of Muon Capture, Phys/ Rep. 354 (2001) 243.
[8] J. Abraham et al., Nucl. Inst. Meth. A523 (2004) 64.