Astronomia di Posizione per Muoni, Algoritmi per foglio elettronico (Positional Astronomy for Muons, Algorithms for electronic spreadsheet)

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for calculating the celestial coordinates of muons detected from cosmic ray air showers, enabling identification of galactic or extragalactic sources using an interactive spreadsheet tool.

Contribution

It introduces a novel procedure and an interactive worksheet for positional astronomy of muons, tailored for cosmic ray detection data in educational settings.

Findings

Method accurately determines muon directions in celestial coordinates.

The worksheet simulates data for educational and research purposes.

Enables source identification of high-energy cosmic rays.

Abstract

The muons of cosmic rays air showers in the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) project are detected with three Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) with good tracking capability. These muon telescopes are located in high schools spread all over Italy. The detection of extensive air showers is made by means of time coincidences between two distant telescopes. The vectorial components of the incoming directions of the muons are known, as well as the UTC time of their arrival on the detectors. The method to calculate the celestial (equatorial and galactic) coordinates of the incoming direction of the muons is presented. This procedure allows recovering galactic or extragalactic sources of the extreme energetic cosmic rays which produce such extensive air showers. A worksheet file (muoni.xls or EEEtest.xls) contains a simulator, to produce data in the same format. This introductory method to positional astronomy for muons, useful also for neutrinos, is presented through explained formulae and an interactive worksheet, tailored for the data format of EEE (http://www.centrofermi.it/eee/).