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Seasonal variation of the underground cosmic muon flux observed at Daya Bay

Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2018

Abstract

The Daya Bay Experiment consists of eight identically designed detectors located in three underground experimental halls named as EH1, EH2, EH3, with 250, 265 and 860 meters of water equivalent vertical overburden, respectively. Cosmic muon events have been recorded over a two-year period.

The underground muon rate is observed to be positively correlated with the effective atmospheric temperature and to follow a seasonal modulation pattern. The correlation coefficient alpha, describing how a variation in the muon rate relates to a variation in the effective atmospheric temperature, is found to be alpha(EH1) = 0 : 362 +/- 0 : 031, alpha(EH2) = 0.433 +/- 0.038 and alpha(EH3) = 0.641 +/- 0.057 for each experimental hall.