https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-00448-y
Regular Article
Searching for correlations of geomagnetic activities with high-energy EAS muons
Department of Physics, University of North Bengal, 734 013, Siliguri, WB, India
Received:
26
November
2019
Accepted:
12
May
2020
Published online:
2
June
2020
The paper aims to explore the asymmetry of the muon content of non-vertical and very high-energy Monte Carlo showers due to the influence of Earth’s geomagnetic field. Simulations have shown that the geomagnetic field modifies the trajectories of muons in a shower producing a polar asymmetry in the density/number of positive and negative muons in the shower front plane. The asymmetry is quantified by a transverse separation between the positive and negative muons barycentric positions through opposite quadrants across the shower core. The dependence of this transverse muon barycenter separation (TMBS) on polar position shows a clear maximum at a position that is correlated with the primary composition and geomagnetic activities. It is noticed that the maximum TMBS parameter exhibits sensitivity to any transient weakening of Earth’s magnetic shield caused by geomagnetic storm originated from bursting solar processes. Obtained simulation results are quite important to design any possible new experiment based on these features of muons in extensive air showers.
© Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
