Search results for "Muons."
showing 10 items of 46 documents
Study of cosmic ray events with high muon multiplicity using the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
2016
ALICE is one of four large experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, specially designed to study particle production in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Located 52 meters underground with 28 meters of overburden rock, it has also been used to detect muons produced by cosmic ray interactions in the upper atmosphere. In this paper, we present the multiplicity distribution of these atmospheric muons and its comparison with Monte Carlo simulations. This analysis exploits the large size and excellent tracking capability of the ALICE Time Projection Chamber. A special emphasis is given to the study of high multiplicity events containing more than 100 reconstructed muons a…
Studies of the performance of the ATLAS detector using cosmic-ray muons
2011
Muons from cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere provide a high-statistics source of particles that can be used to study the performance and calibration of the ATLAS detector. Cosmic-ray muons can penetrate to the cavern and deposit energy in all detector subsystems. Such events have played an important role in the commissioning of the detector since the start of the installation phase in 2005 and were particularly important for understanding the detector performance in the time prior to the arrival of the first LHC beams. Global cosmic-ray runs were undertaken in both 2008 and 2009 and these data have been used through to the early phases of collision data-taking as a tool for calibrat…
Heavy flavour decay muon production at forward rapidity in proton--proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
2012
The production of muons from heavy flavour decays is measured at forward rapidity in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV collected with the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The analysis is carried out on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity $L_{\rm int} = 16.5$ nb$^{-1}$. The transverse momentum and rapidity differential production cross sections of muons from heavy flavour decays are measured in the rapidity range 2.5 < y < 4, over the transverse momentum range 2 < $p_{\rm T}$ < 12 GeV/$c$. The results are compared to predictions based on perturbative QCD calculations.
Search for neutrino emission from gamma-ray flaring blazars with the ANTARES telescope
2012
The ANTARES telescope observes a full hemisphere of the sky all the time with a duty cycle close to 100%. This makes it well suited for an extensive observation of neutrinos produced in astrophysical transient sources. In the surrounding medium of blazars, i.e. active galactic nuclei with their jets pointing almost directly towards the observer, neutrinos may be produced together with gamma-rays by hadronic interactions, so a strong correlation between neutrinos and gamma-rays emissions is expected. The time variability information of the studied source can be obtained by the gamma-ray light curves measured by the LAT instrument on-board the Fermi satellite. If the expected neutrino flux ob…
Measurement of the atmospheric ?µ energy spectrum from 100 GeV to 200 TeV with the ANTARES telescope
2013
Atmospheric neutrinos are produced during cascades initiated by the interaction of primary cosmic rays with air nuclei. In this paper, a measurement of the atmospheric energy spectrum in the energy range 0.1-200 TeV is presented, using data collected by the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope from 2008 to 2011. Overall, the measured flux is similar to 25 % higher than predicted by the conventional neutrino flux, and compatible with the measurements reported in ice. The flux is compatible with a single power-law dependence with spectral index gamma (meas)=3.58 +/- 0.12. With the present statistics the contribution of prompt neutrinos cannot be established.
First search for neutrinos in correlation with gamma-ray bursts with the ANTARES neutrino telescope
2013
A search for neutrino-induced muons in correlation with a selection of 40 gamma-ray bursts that occurred in 2007 has been performed with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. During that period, the detector consisted of 5 detection lines. The ANTARES neutrino telescope is sensitive to TeV-PeV neutrinos that are predicted from gamma-ray bursts. No events were found in correlation with the prompt photon emission of the gamma-ray bursts and upper limits have been placed on the flux and fluence of neutrinos for different models.
Detection potential of the KM3NeT detector for high-energy neutrinos from the Fermi bubbles
2013
A recent analysis of the Fermi Large Area Telescope data provided evidence for a high-intensity emission of high-energy gamma rays with a E-2 spectrum from two large areas, spanning 50 above and below the Galactic centre (the "Fermi bubbles"). A hadronic mechanism was proposed for this gamma-ray emission making the Fermi bubbles promising source candidates of high-energy neutrino emission. In this work Monte Carlo simulations regarding the detectability of high-energy neutrinos from the Fermi bubbles with the future multi-km(3) neutrino telescope KM3NeT in the Mediterranean Sea are presented. Under the hypothesis that the gamma-ray emission is completely due to hadronic processes, the resul…
Muons in air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory: Measurement of atmospheric production depth
2014
The surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory provides information about the longitudinal development of the muonic component of extensive air showers. Using the timing information from the flash analog-to-digital converter traces of surface detectors far from the shower core, it is possible to reconstruct a muon production depth distribution. We characterize the goodness of this reconstruction for zenith angles around 60° and different energies of the primary particle. From these distributions, we define Xμmax as the depth along the shower axis where the production of muons reaches maximum. We explore the potentiality of Xμmax as a useful observable to infer the mass compositi…
Search for excited electrons and muons in root s=8 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector
2013
The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for excited electrons and excited muons in the channel pp → ℓℓ* → ℓℓγ, assuming that excited leptons are produced via contact interactions. The analysis is based on 13 fb[superscript −1] of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. No evidence for excited leptons is found, and a limit is set at the 95% credibility level on the cross section times branching ratio as a function of the excited-lepton mass m[subscript ℓ*]. For m[subscript ℓ*] ≥ 0.8 TeV, the respective upper limits on σB(ℓ* → ℓγ) are 0.75 and 0.90 fb for the e* and μ* searches. Limits on σB are converted into lower bounds on the compositeness scale Λ. In …
Search for strong gravity signatures in same-sign dimuon final states using the ATLAS detector at the LHC
2012
A search for microscopic black holes has been performed in a same-sign dimuon final state using 1.3 fb[superscript −1] of proton–proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at a centre of mass energy of 7 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The data are found to be consistent with the expectation from the Standard Model and the results are used to derive exclusion contours in the context of a low scale gravity model.