Orateur
Prof.
maurizio spurio
(Università Bologna)
Description
At sea level the flux of charged particles is dominated by muons, which originated by the decay of mesons produced by the interactions of primary cosmic rays at the top of the atmosphere. Due to their relative stability and small cross sections, these particle are able to arrive deep under-ground, -water or -ice. As a consequence, their penetration properties opens the possibility of radiography of thick and very thick objects. The muon flux is strongly dependent on energy and zenith angle and, at low energies, also on altitude, geomagnetic latitude, solar activity and atmospheric conditions. Finally, the study of the muon flux covers many aspects of particle and cosmic ray physics. The talk will review some experimental aspects and results obtained in the last decades using different methods. These methods can be combined into direct measurements of the muon energy spectrum at the sea level (or shallow depths) using magnetic spectrometers and the measurements of the depth–intensity curve deep under-ground,-water and -ice. The measurements cover a large interval of the muon momentum at the sea level (from a fraction of GeV/c up to tens of TeV) and the different experimental techniques are shortly illustrated. The correlation between some observable quantities with their systematic uncertainties and the underlying physical processes are described. Finally, underground and underwater events contain a large fraction of multiple muons; the characteristics of muon bundles are presented.
Auteur principal
Prof.
maurizio spurio
(Università Bologna)
