Comparison of the measured atmospheric muon rate with Monte Carlo simulations and sensitivity study for detection of prompt atmospheric muons with KM3NeT

TL;DR

This study compares measured atmospheric muon rates at KM3NeT with Monte Carlo simulations and explores the potential detection of prompt muons at PeV energies, enhancing understanding of high-energy air showers and neutrino telescope calibration.

Contribution

It provides the first comparison of atmospheric muon data with detailed Monte Carlo simulations at KM3NeT and assesses the sensitivity to prompt muons at PeV energies.

Findings

Measured muon rates agree with simulations within uncertainties.

First simulation-based estimates of prompt muon signals for KM3NeT.

Demonstrated the feasibility of using atmospheric muons to test simulation accuracy.

Abstract

The KM3NeT Collaboration has successfully deployed the first detection units of the next generation undersea neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean Sea at the two sites in Italy and in France. A sample of the data collected between December 2016 and January 2020 has been used to measure the atmospheric muon rate at two different depths under the sea level: 3.5 km with KM3NeT-ARCA and 2.5 km with KM3NeT-ORCA. Atmospheric muons represent an abundant signal in a neutrino telescope and can be used to test the reliability of the Monte Carlo simulation chain and to study the physics of extensive air showers caused by highly-energetic primary nuclei impinging the Earth's atmosphere. At energies above PeV the contribution from prompt muons, created right after the first interaction in the shower, is expected to become dominant, however its existence has not yet been experimentally confirmed. In this work, data collected with the first detection units of KM3NeT are compared to Monte Carlo simulations based on MUPAGE and CORSIKA codes. The main features of the simulation and reconstruction chains are presented. Additionally, the first results of the simulated signal from the prompt muon component for KM3NeT-ARCA and KM3NeT-ORCA obtained with CORSIKA are discussed.