A study of underground muons in the Soudan 2 detector

Physics

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Calorimeters, Confidence Limits, Cosmic Ray Showers, High Energy Interactions, Muons, Particle Trajectories, Radiation Detectors, Data Processing, Data Reduction, Emitters, Minnesota, Point Sources

Scientific paper

An 1100 ton fine grained tracking calorimeter, designed by the Soudan II collaboration, is being constructed in a purpose-built underground laboratory in northern Minnesota, U.S.A. The experiment is situated at a depth of 2090 meters of water equivalent, latitude 47 deg 78 min N and longitude 92 deg 20 min W. During the period from Mar. - Aug. 1989, an equivalent live-time of 0.221 years, the completed 350 tons of the detector was used to collect a sample of 1,222 cosmic ray data runs. Fast track reconstruction software was developed, which determines underground muon trajectories to approximately +/- 1.0 deg. The strict quality control of data imposed prior to a physics analysis is described. After data reduction, the sample to be analyzed contained 452,708 reconstructed single muon tracks. This sample was used to investigate the possibility that the astronomical point source, Cygnus X-3, is an emitter of high energy muons. The integrated excess muon flux was determined by using the data to calculate the expected muon rate from the source direction. A 2.1(sigma) overall excess was observed within a 3 deg half-angle cone centered on the source, which corresponds to a 90 percent confidence level upper limit on the integrated excess flux of (2.3 +/- 0.1)(10)(exp -11)/sq cm-s. Enhancements of 2.0(sigma) and 2.1(sigma) were also observed in two a priori selected phase bands. Cygnus X-3 underwent two giant radio outbursts in Jun. and Jul. 1989. Evidence was found for a 3.18(sigma) increase in the muon rate, within the two chosen phase bands, subsequent to the initial activity in the radio region.

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