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Balloon measurements of cosmic ray muon spectra in the atmosphere along with those of primary protons and helium nuclei over midlatitude

R. Bellotti, F. Cafagna, M. Circella*, and C. N. De Marzo

R. L. Golden† and S. J. Stochaj

M. P. De Pascale, A. Morselli, and P. Picozza

S. A. Stephens

M. Hof, W. Menn, and M. Simon

J. W. Mitchell, J. F. Ormes, and R. E. Streitmatter

N. Finetti, C. Grimani‡, P. Papini§, S. Piccardi, and P. Spillantini

G. Basini and M. Ricci

  • Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Bari and INFN-Sezione di Bari, Via Amendola 173, I-70126 Bari, Italy

  • Particle Astrophysics Laboratory, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003

  • Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Roma “Tor Vergata” and INFN-Sezione di Roma II, Via Carnevale 15, I-00173 Rome, Italy

  • Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay 400 005, India

  • Universität Siegen, D-57068 Siegen, Germany

  • NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

  • Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Firenze and INFN-Sezione di Firenze, Largo Enrico Fermi 2, I-50125 Florence, Italy

  • INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Via Enrico Fermi 40, I-00044 Frascati, Italy

  • *Electronic address: marco.circella@ba.infn.it
  • †Deceased.
  • ‡Also at Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Urbino, Urbino, Italy.
  • §Electronic address: paolo.papini@fi.infn.it
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Phys. Rev. D 60, 052002 – Published 14 July, 1999

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.60.052002

Abstract

We report here the measurements of the energy spectra of atmospheric muons and of the parent cosmic ray primary proton and helium nuclei in a single experiment. These were carried out using the MASS superconducting spectrometer in a balloon flight experiment in 1991. The relevance of these results to the atmospheric neutrino anomaly is emphasized. In particular, this approach allows uncertainties caused by the level of solar modulation, the geomagnetic cut-off of the primaries and possible experimental systematics, to be decoupled in the comparison of calculated fluxes of muons to measured muon fluxes. The muon observations cover the momentum and depth ranges of 0.3–40 GeV/c and 5–886 g/cm2, respectively. A comparison of these results with those obtained in a previous experiment by the same collaboration using a similar apparatus allows us to search for differences due to the different experimental conditions at low energy and to check for the overall normalization between the two measurements. The proton and helium primary measurements cover the rigidity range from 3 to 100 GV, in which both the solar modulation and the geomagnetic cut-off affect the energy spectra at low energies. From the observed low-energy helium spectrum, the geomagnetic transmission function at mid-latitude has been determined.

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Phys. Rev. D 60, 052002– Published 14 July, 1999
  • Received 30 November 1998

© 1999 American Physical Society

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