1. Energy Spectra, Altitude Profiles and Charge Ratios of Atmospheric Muons
- Author
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Coutu, S., Beatty, J. J., DuVernois, M. A., Barwick, S. W., Schneider, E., Bhattacharyya, A., Bower, C. R., Musser, J. A., Labrador, A., Muller, D., Swordy, S. P., Torbet, E., Chaput, C., McKee, S., Tarle, G., Tomasch, A. D., Nutter, S. L., and deNolfo, G. A.
- Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment - Abstract
We present a new measurement of air shower muons made during atmospheric ascent of the High Energy Antimatter Telescope balloon experiment. The muon charge ratio mu+ / mu- is presented as a function of atmospheric depth in the momentum interval 0.3-0.9 GeV/c. The differential mu- momentum spectra are presented between 0.3 and about 50 GeV/c at atmospheric depths between 13 and 960 g/cm^2. We compare our measurements with other recent data and with Monte Carlo calculations of the same type as those used in predicting atmospheric neutrino fluxes. We find that our measured mu- fluxes are smaller than the predictions by as much as 70% at shallow atmospheric depths, by about 20% at the depth of shower maximum, and are in good agreement with the predictions at greater depths. We explore the consequences of this on the question of atmospheric neutrino production., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. D (2000)
- Published
- 2000
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