Research Article

Directional sensitivity of MuSTAnG muon telescope

¹ Institute of Physics, University of Greifswald, 17487 Greifswald, Germany
² Cosmic Ray Division, Yerevan Physics Institute, Yerevan 0036, Armenia

^* Corresponding author: e-mail: grigori@yerphi.am

Received: 26 November 2012
Accepted: 1 April 2013

Abstract

We investigate directional sensitivity of MuSTAnG muon telescope by deriving the distribution of secondary muons, which create the counting rate of telescope, by asymptotic directions of primary protons. This distribution, defined as “directivity function”, allows us to clarify protons appearing from which direction essentially contribute to counting rate of detector. Directivity function has different behavior for the muons falling on the telescope at different zenith and polar angles. Vertical, West, and East fluxes exhibit strong maximums near the asymptotic longitude about 61°, whereas North and South fluxes have larger spread distributions. About 65% of muons, which create the Vertical counting rate of MuSTAnG, are produced by the primary protons, coming in the interval of asymptotic longitudes about (50°, 80°). Using directivity function will allow one to more correctly determine the location of interplanetary disturbances. Analogous analysis, made for other muon detectors, will clarify their directional sensitivities, improving by this the forecasting capability of network of ground-based muon detectors.