The Atmospheric Muon Charge Ratio at the MINOS Near Detector

2011/11/11 by J. K. de Jong, de Jong, J. K.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1111.2718

openalex publication_date 2011/11/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

The magnetized MINOS near detector can accurately determine the charge sign of atmospheric muons, this facilitates a measurement of the atmospheric muon charge ratio. To reduce the systematic error associated with geometric bias and acceptance we have combined equal periods of data obtained with opposite magnetic field polarities. We report a charge ratio of 1.2666±0.0015(stat.)^+0.0096_-0.0088(syst.) at a mean E_μ,0cos(θ)=\unit[63]GeV. This measurement is consistent with the world average\citeHebbeker\citeHaino\citeAchard but significantly lower than the earlier observation at the MINOS far detector\citeAdamson. This increase is shown to be consistent with the hypothesis that a greater fraction of the observed muons arise from kaon decay within the cosmic ray shower.

Related

• Interpretation of the atmospheric muon charge ratio in MINOS
• Measurement of the Charge Ratio of Atmospheric Muons with the CMS Detector
• The Maximum Detectable Momentum for cosmic ray muons in the MINOS far detector
• Measurement of cosmic muon charge ratio with the Large Volume Detector
• Charge ratio of cosmic ray muons in momentum range ~ 1 to 3 GeV/c