The atmospheric charged kaon/pion ratio using seasonal variation methods

TL;DR

This paper extends seasonal variation methods to include kaons, enabling measurement of the atmospheric K/π ratio at high energies using underground muon data, demonstrated with MINOS data and applicable to other detectors.

Contribution

It introduces a new method that incorporates kaon effects into seasonal variation analysis to measure the atmospheric K/π ratio at energies beyond current fixed target experiments.

Findings

Successfully applied to MINOS data

Provides a framework for other underground detectors

Enhances understanding of atmospheric meson production

Abstract

Observed since the 1950's, the seasonal effect on underground muons is a well studied phenomenon. The interaction height of incident cosmic rays changes as the temperature of the atmosphere changes, which affects the production height of mesons (mostly pions and kaons). The decay of these mesons produces muons that can be detected underground. The production of muons is dominated by pion decay, and previous work did not include the effect of kaons. In this work, the methods of Barrett and MACRO are extended to include the effect of kaons. These efforts give rise to a new method to measure the atmospheric K/$\pi$ ratio at energies beyond the reach of current fixed target experiments. These methods were applied to data from the MINOS far detector. A method is developed for making these measurements at other underground detectors, including OPERA, Super-K, IceCube, Baksan and the MINOS near detector.