Seasonal Variation of Atmospheric Muons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how atmospheric conditions influence muon detection rates, comparing methods to characterize muon production and effective temperature, with implications for underground and extended detectors.

Contribution

It introduces and compares different methods for modeling muon production profiles and effective temperature in the atmosphere, enhancing understanding of seasonal muon variations.

Findings

Different methods yield consistent muon production profiles.

Effective temperature definitions impact seasonal variation analysis.

Results applicable to both underground and extended detectors.

Abstract

Competition between decay and re-interaction of charged pions and kaons depends on the temperature/density profile of the upper atmosphere. The amplitude and phase of the variations depend on the minimum muon energy required to reach the detector and on muon multiplicity in the detector. Here we compare different methods for characterizing the muon production profile and the corresponding effective temperature. A muon production profile based on a parameterization of simulations of muons as a function of primary energy is compared with approximate analytic solutions of the cascade equation integrated over primary energy. In both cases, we compare two definitions of effective temperature. We emphasize applications to compact underground detectors like MINOS and OPERA, while indicating how they relate to extended detectors like IceCube.