Development of a compact telescope for cosmic muon flux and density measurements

Details

Supervisors

Giammanco, Andrea ; Cortina Gil, Eduardo

Faculty

Faculté des sciences

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences physiques

Abstract

Large-area glass Resistive Plate Chambers (gRPC) are widely in use for several High-Energy Physics experiments, and in the context of cosmic-ray muography the TOMUVOL project [1] already demonstrated that this technology is appropriate for volcano studies. We have developed a muography telescope based on "mini-gRPC" planes based on the same concept as the gRPC detectors used by TOMUVOL and by the CMS [2] and CALICE [3] experiments, but with smaller active area (16x16 cm2). Its compact size makes it an attractive choice with respect to other detectors previously employed for imaging on similar scales. An important innovation of this design is gas tightness: this makes the detector more "portable" and solves the usual safety and logistic issues for gas detectors operated underground and/or inside small rooms.This instrument is then designed for challenging operating conditions and could be optimized for applications in geological and archaeological studies as well as for nuclear waste characterization. Data in real-life operating conditions have been taken at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in the Utah desert as part of the project UCL to Mars and also at Université catholique de Louvain in the cyclotron building. In parallel, some geometrical simulations have been performed in order to compare with the real data as well as study the effect on the reconstructed angles due to the misalignement, acceptance and angular resolution of the detectors. Finally a small part was dedicated to the calculation of the signal induced in such a detector.