Dr Gomez - "Studying atmospheric muons: From neutrino physics to archaeological applications"

par Dr Hector Gomez (APC - Université Paris 7)

mercredi 1 mars 2017, 10:45 → 11:45 Europe/Paris

Mondrian (IPHC, Bât 25)

Muons created by cosmic-rays in the atmosphere and the subsequent muon-induced events are one of the main concerns regarding background in neutrino experiments, as well as in other Rare Event searches. The cases where the experimental set-ups are placed on surface or at shallow depth, with the muon flux remaining high, are even more critical, and a precise knowledge about the flux, energy and angular distribution of muons reaching the detector is mandatory for an effective data analysis. Inside the Double Chooz collaboration, a full study on atmospheric muons for the two identical detectors has been performed combining data analysis and the corresponding simulations. For the latter, the MUSIC simulation package has been used evaluating the uncertainties associated with the difference of the muon models at Earth's surface. In the first part, main features and results of this study will be presented, which include the observation of the flux annual modulation and its correlation with the atmospheric effective temperature, being one of the first times where this effect has been measured in shallow depth installations, showing in agreement with the expectations based on theoretical models. Moreover, muons can represent a valuable tool for other applications. This is the case of the so-called muon tomography technique for structures scanning. In the second part of the seminar, it will be showed how the muon - simulation framework performed for Double Chooz, has been adequate to study the potential of muon tomography as scanning method for the internal structure of archaeological objects, revealing it a potential technique.

Slides AtmosphericMuons_HGomez_20170301_Backup.pdf