Abstract
Using two years of data from the NOvA Near Detector at Fermilab, we report a seasonal variation of cosmic ray induced multiple-muon (Nμ≥2) event rates which has an opposite phase to the seasonal variation in the atmospheric temperature. The strength of the seasonal multiple-muon variation is shown to increase as a function of the muon multiplicity. However, no significant dependence of the strength of the seasonal variation of the multiple-muon variation is seen as a function of the muon zenith angle, or the spatial or angular separation between the correlated muons.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 122004 |
| Journal | Physical Review D |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 28 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This document was prepared by the NOvA collaboration using the resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Department of Science and Technology, India; the European Research Council; the MSMT CR, GA UK, Czech Republic; the RAS, RFBR, Russian Ministry of Education and Science, RSF, and BASIS Foundation, Russia; CNPq and FAPEG, Brazil; STFC, and the Royal Society, United Kingdom; and the state and University of Minnesota. We are grateful for the contributions of the staffs of the University of Minnesota at the Ash River Laboratory and of Fermilab.