Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2020) 135: 280
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-00287-x

Regular Article

Investigation of the cosmic ray angular distribution and the East–West effect near the top of Etna volcano with the MEV telescope

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia ‘E.Majorana’, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy
² INFN, Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy
³ INFN, Laboratorio Nazionale del Sud, Catania, Italy

^* e-mail: Francesco.Riggi@ct.infn.it

Received: 19 November 2019
Accepted: 21 February 2020
Published online: 2 March 2020

Abstract

An experimental investigation of cosmic muons has been carried out with the Muography of Etna Volcano (MEV) tracking telescope, installed at an altitude of about 3100 m a.s.l. in front of the North-East Etna crater. The analysis of a statistically significant data sample ( events), taken during a period of approximately 2 months, has been carried out to investigate the angular distribution of cosmic muons originating both from the open sky side and from a large solid rock thickness (Etna side). Due to the geographical orientation of the MEV telescope, anisotropies caused by the East–West effect could also be observed, extracting the asymmetry factor in small steps of the zenithal angle.