Estimar la respuesta de un WCD al fondo de radiación cósmica en Pamplona.

Abstract

Cosmic ray (CR) surveys are conducted primarily through the use of ground-mounted detectors; These detectors record the secondary radiation produced by the interaction of RC with the Earth's atmosphere. Since 2019, the University of Pamplona has been an active member of the large-scale observatory LAGO (Giant Latin American Observatory). This observatory operated a series of Water Cherenkov Detectors (WCD) distributed throughout Latin America in a wide range of latitudes. The installation of a new WCD requires the performance of a series of simulations, from the calculation of the primary flow that reaches the atmosphere of Pamplona, to the response of the WCD to secondary radiation, this being the atmospheric rain cascade. Here we are showing as the main result the estimation of the secondary energy spectrum expected in Pamplona at an altitude of 2342 mamsl, representing the amount of particles generated from electrons, protons, muons, photons and neutrons, this signal being received for different WCD geometries. For this, we have used LAGO's ARTI toolkit, a framework of techniques and computational codes (CORSIKA, GEANT4, C++, Python) to estimate the WCD signals produced by cosmic radiation on the ground. Thus, the WCD allows us to separate the signal deposited by the muons from the electrons and positrons. From the referenced calculations showing the muon signal away from the noise signal, it is expected that a WCD installed in Pamplona can function as a muon count. As a probable estimate, we have verified in different geometries that the capacity of the WCD can measure the half-life of the muon, this implies that a WCD deployed at the University of Pamplona can be used as laboratory equipment to teach particle physics.