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Cosmic Ray Finder - A muon spotter?

Written by Robert Greenyer on .

These videos below show testing of a tool meant for cosmic ray detection with a range of radioactive isotopes as well as for background signal with a view to deploying it in experiments to potentially look for muons or other emissions from our reactors.

 

 
During the video above the first background detection in over 8 hours was made (you can hear an audible click and see see that the count number has gone to 1) . You can find the image in the resources in the above link and a quick look at what it 'saw' is shown in this video. 

Visualisation of cosmic ray

This video is an attempt to make the event observed in the calibration of our "cosmic ray finder" clearer to visualise.

A FHD version of the actual visualisation used to create the above video can be downloaded from here


 

How to determine what is a MUON track...

Key important aspects of Muon detection theory relevant to our experiments are highlighted in this overview of a presentation by Don Groom of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

 
 
 
Santa Cruz lab were main investigation conducted

More effective visualisation of 'cosmic ray finder' events...

In preparation for GS 5.5, where we will be attempting to create ultra dense hydrogen, we are building a lead housing for our 'muon' detector to cut 'worms' caused by compton scattering, the idea being that only muon will remain and if we see any, we have a visualisation ready to help us understand the dynamics of the events.

In this visualisation a perspective camera has been used with a mesh that is double sided so we can see form and structure of the displacement.



 

Muon detector lead shielding...

As per the findings of Don Groom, we have positioned the muon detector (blinded Logitech webcam) into a 1cm lead lined box - which means, if we ever see something, it will most likely be a cosmogenic muon or something from our reactor!

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+1 #1 Tom Andersen 2017-03-02 02:07
Bob,

I have written a cosmic ray app for the iPhone. I did a PhD on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.

Cover the camera with black tape. Plug phone into power. Start the app. Go to bed. Wake up and 'Show Top' to see some nice events. Remember that most events are straight through so look like nice bright dots. iPhone 5 and 6 work best.

cosmicrayapp.com
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