Shore Shadow Effect in Baikal

TL;DR

This paper presents a GEANT4-based simulation to estimate underwater atmospheric muon flux at Lake Baikal, demonstrating the shore shadow effect consistent with measurements, aiding neutrino telescope experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation approach for muon propagation through water, accounting for shore shadow effects, applicable to neutrino detection experiments like Baikal-GVD.

Findings

Simulation results match the observed shore shadow in NT-96 measurements.

The method can propagate muons through water, ice, and earth for experimental simulations.

Underwater muon flux estimation is improved with the GEANT4-based model.

Abstract

The measurement of the individual charged particles especially muons in an extended air shower (EAS) resulting from primary cosmic rays provides important distinguishing parameters to identify the chemical composition of the cosmic primary particles. For Neutrino Telescope experiments like Baikal-GVD, the estimation of underwater muon flux is of importance to study atmospheric muons. In this paper, a GEANT4-based simulation is presented to estimate the atmospheric muon flux underwater taking Baikal-GVD as an example. The location of the Baikal-GVD experiment at Lake Baikal provides a unique opportunity to study the passage of muons through its northern shore and the water. The muons arriving from the north direction will lose more energy as compared to those arriving from the south. An approximation for the northern shore is also simulated in the GEANT4 geometry and the results of the simulation are compared with the measurements from the NT-96 detector. The results of the simulations are consistent with the shore shadow observed in the measurements in the NT-96. This approach can also be used to propagate the muons from generators like CORSIKA through long distances in matter like water, ice, earth, etc. for simulations in such experiments.