First buried muon counter prototype for the Auger Observatory

TL;DR

This paper presents the development and testing of a buried muon counter prototype for the Auger Observatory, aimed at improving cosmic ray composition analysis by accurately detecting muons.

Contribution

It introduces a new buried muon counter prototype and evaluates its performance before and after burial to enhance cosmic ray detection capabilities.

Findings

Successful validation of the muon counter performance

Effective shielding from electromagnetic contamination

Potential for improved mass composition determination

Abstract

AMIGA (Auger Muons and Infill for the Ground Array) constitutes an enhancement for the Pierre Auger Observatory. It consists of a denser array of surface detectors and muon counters whose objective is both to extend the detection range down to 10^17 eV and to help towards mass composition determination. The latter is to be achieved with muon counters since the shower muon content is one of the best parameter for particle type identification. In this work, we present the study of a muon counter prototype. The prototype was buried 3 m deep in an effort to avoid signal contamination from the shower electromagnetic component. We study the performance of the detector before and after burying it with its associated electronic components. The detector validation is performed from signal analysis of charged particles traversing the counter.