Technical Article

New cosmic ray observations at Syowa Station in the Antarctic for space weather study

¹ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Shinshu University, Matsumoto, 390-8621 Nagano, Japan
² National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), Tachikawa, 190-8518 Tokyo, Japan
³ Polar Environment Data Science Center, Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research, Research Organization of Information and Systems, Tachikawa, 105-0001 Tokyo, Japan
⁴ Bartol Research Institute, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, 19716 DE, USA
⁵ Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, PR China
⁶ Department of Polar Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, 240-0193 Sokendai, Japan

^* Corresponding author: ckato@shinshu-u.ac.jp

Received: 25 September 2020
Accepted: 18 January 2021

Abstract

Muon detectors and neutron monitors were recently installed at Syowa Station, in the Antarctic, to observe different types of secondary particles resulting from cosmic ray interactions simultaneously from the same location. Continuing observations will give new insight into the response of muon detectors to atmospheric and geomagnetic effects. Operation began in February, 2018 and the system has been stable with a duty-cycle exceeding 94%. Muon data shows a clear seasonal variation, which is expected from the atmospheric temperature effect. We verified successful operation by showing that the muon and neutron data are consistent with those from other locations by comparing intensity variations during a space weather event. We have established a web page to make real time data available with interactive graphics (http://polaris.nipr.ac.jp/cosmicrays/).