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Muons arriving on the Earth's surface are created indirectly as decay products of collisions of cosmic rays with particles of the Earth's atmosphere. [12] About 10,000 muons reach every square meter of the earth's surface a minute; these charged particles form as by-products of cosmic rays colliding with molecules in the upper atmosphere.
Cosmic rays collide in the atmosphere, generating particle showers. [19] The muons in these showers travel close to the speed of light and spread out as they travel through the atmosphere. They reach the ground at almost the same time, so by sharing the information provided by these muons, clocks can be synchronized. [20]
The emergence of the muons is caused by the collision of cosmic rays with the upper atmosphere, after which the muons reach Earth. The probability that muons can reach the Earth depends on their half-life, which itself is modified by the relativistic corrections of two quantities: a) the mean lifetime of muons and b) the length between the upper and lower atmosphere (at Earth's surface).
Air showers are extensive cascades of subatomic particles and ionized nuclei, produced in the atmosphere when a primary cosmic ray enters the atmosphere. Particles of cosmic radiation can be protons, nuclei, electrons, photons, or (rarely) positrons. Upon entering the atmosphere, they interact with molecules and initiate a particle cascade that ...
Unlike pions, these muons do not interact strongly with matter, and can travel through the atmosphere to penetrate even below ground level. The rate of muons arriving at the surface of the Earth is such that about one per second passes through a volume the size of a person's head. [15]
First, muons are naturally abundant and travel from the atmosphere towards the Earth’s surface. [83] This abundant muon flux is nearly constant, therefore muography can be used worldwide. Second, because of the high-contrast resolution of muography, a small void of less than 0.001% of the entire volume can be distinguished. [ 13 ]
There is a large background of muons created not by neutrinos from astrophysical sources but by cosmic rays impacting the atmosphere above the detector. There are about 10 6 times more cosmic ray muons than neutrino-induced muons observed in IceCube. [citation needed] Most of these can be rejected using the fact that they are traveling ...
When such a single particle reaches Earth atmosphere, it has its energy dissipated by creating billions of other particles: electrons, photons and muons, all near the speed of light. These particles spread longitudinally (perpendicular to the single particle incoming route), creating a forward moving plane of particles, with higher intensities ...