Speaker
Description
Measuring the flux of cosmic ray particles involves multiple scientific disciplines and carries significant technical applications. In our case, the primary motivation for determining the muon spectrum was the scarcity of literature data available in the momentum range below 1 GeV/c. Furthermore, we aimed to investigate whether such measurements could be performed using a device originally designed for a different purpose but suitable for the identification of muons. Additionally, cosmic rays constitute a constant external background in gamma spectroscopy; therefore, we wanted to quantify this unshieldable background contribution during the activity measurement of gamma-emitting samples.
One of my project’s aims was to measure the energy deposition spectrum of
cosmic rays on every floor of the Northern Building at the Lágymányos campus. This provides insight into the variations in particle flux and the production of secondary particles as they travel through matter. My other goal was to provide a quantitative description of the background radiation’s contribution to gamma spectroscopy.
During my research, I performed multi-day measurements across the floors
of the university building, which provided a better understanding of the spectral shape and the facilitated the determination of the contributions from both muons and secondary particles. Furthermore, I developed a simulation environment using the Geant4 software environment and compared the simulated energy deposition spectra with the experimental results.
Moreover, the detector and measurement method employed provided insights
into the shape of the cosmic muon momentum distribution at low momenta,
specifically in the 0-1 GeV/c range.