Multimuons in cosmic-ray events as seen in ALICE at the LHC


Acharya S., Agarwal A., Aglieri Rinella G., Aglietta L., Agnello M., Agrawal N., ...Daha Fazla

Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, cilt.2025, sa.4, 2025 (SCI-Expanded) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 2025 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2025
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1088/1475-7516/2025/04/009
  • Dergi Adı: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Aerospace Database, INSPEC, zbMATH
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: cosmic ray experiments, cosmic rays detectors
  • Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

ALICE is a large experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Located 52 meters underground, its detectors are suitable to measure muons produced by cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere. In this paper, the studies of the cosmic muons registered by ALICE during Run 2 (2015–2018) are described. The analysis is limited to multimuon events defined as events with more than four detected muons (Nµ > 4) and in the zenith angle range 0◦ < θ < 50◦. The results are compared with Monte Carlo simulations using three of the main hadronic interaction models describing the air shower development in the atmosphere: QGSJET-II-04, EPOS-LHC, and SIBYLL 2.3d. The interval of the primary cosmic-ray energy involved in the measured muon multiplicity distribution is about 4×1015 < Eprim < 6×1016 eV. In this interval none of the three models is able to describe precisely the trend of the composition of cosmic rays as the energy increases. However, QGSJET-II-04 is found to be the only model capable of reproducing reasonably well the muon multiplicity distribution, assuming a heavy composition of the primary cosmic rays over the whole energy range, while SIBYLL 2.3d and EPOS-LHC underpredict the number of muons in a large interval of multiplicity by more than 20% and 30%, respectively. The rate of high muon multiplicity events (Nµ > 100) obtained with QGSJET-II-04 and SIBYLL 2.3d is compatible with the data, while EPOS-LHC produces a significantly lower rate (55% of the measured rate). For both QGSJET-II-04 and SIBYLL 2.3d, the rate is close to the data when the composition is assumed to be dominated by heavy elements, an outcome compatible with the average energy Eprim ∼ 1017 eV of these events. This result places significant constraints on more exotic production mechanisms.