Related papers: Obtaining material identification with cosmic ray …
Weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) annihilating in the center of the Sun or the Earth may give rise to energetic neutrinos which might be discovered by astronomical neutrino detectors. The angular distribution of the…
High-energy cosmic rays are observed indirectly by detecting the extensive air showers initiated in Earth's atmosphere. The interpretation of these observations relies on accurate models of air shower physics, which is a challenge and an…
Muon Tomography based on the measurement of multiple scattering of atmospheric cosmic ray muons in matter is a promising technique for detecting heavily shielded high-Z radioactive materials (U, Pu) in cargo or vehicles. The technique uses…
In the early years, cosmic rays contributed essentially to particle physics through the discovery of new particles. Will history repeat itself? As with the discovery of the charged pion, the recent discovery of a Higgs-like boson may…
This paper describes a new measurement of the flux ratio of positive and negative muons from cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere, using data collected by the CMS detector at ground level and in the underground experimental cavern. The…
The nature of dark matter, the invisible substance making up over $80\%$ of the matter in the Universe, is one of the most fundamental mysteries of modern physics. Ultralight bosons such as axions, axion-like particles or dark photons could…
The first parts of the thesis recalls the main features of the large MACRO experiment at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory. It then describes the atmospheric muons measured by the experiment and the selection criteria to obtain and…
The existence of big bang relic neutrinos - exact analogues of the big bang relic photons comprising the cosmic microwave background radiation - is a basic prediction of standard cosmology. At present, the observational evidence for their…
Non-uniform structures of nuclear matter are studied in a wide density-range. Using the density functional theory with a relativistic mean-field model, we examine non-uniform structures at sub-nuclear densities (nuclear ``pastas'') and at…
We show that dark-matter candidates with large masses and large nuclear interaction cross sections are detectable with terrestrial radar systems. We develop our results in close comparison to successful radar searches for tiny meteoroids,…
Tomographic imaging techniques using the Coulomb scattering of cosmic-ray muons have been shown previously to successfully identify and characterise low- and high-Z materials within an air matrix using a prototype scintillating-fibre…
In the Muon package under study, the tracks are extrapolated using an algorithm which accounts for the magnetic field and the ionization (dE/dx). We improved the calculation of the field dependent term to increase the muon detection…
Radiography with cosmic ray muon scattering has proven to be a successful method of imaging nuclear material through heavy shielding. Of particular interest is monitoring dry storage casks for diversion of plutonium contained in spent…
Using the atmospheric neutrinos to probe the density profile of the Earth depends on knowing the angular distribution of the neutrinos at production and the neutrino cross section. This paper reviews the essential features of the angular…
The primary aim of ANTARES is neutrino astronomy with upward going muons created in charged current muon neutrino interactions in the detector and its surroundings. Downward going muons are background for neutrino searches. These muons are…
Atmospheric muons are the most frequently observed form of cosmic radiation. Despite this, the existence of the muon flux component produced in decays of short-lived parent particles, called prompt muon flux still awaits experimental…
We investigate the cosmological stability of light bosonic dark matter carrying a tiny electric charge. In the wave-like regime of high occupation numbers, annihilation into gauge bosons can be drastically enhanced by parametric resonance.…
Coulomb-like interactions typically has a cross section scales with velocity dependence as $\sigma=\sigma_0 v^{-4}$. The momentum transfer rate between a slightly charged dark matter and ionized particles increases significantly at low…
We have re-purposed portable plastic scintillator muon detectors, designed by the CosmicWatch project, for the measurement of electrons emitted by the decay of radioactive sources. For the latter purpose we have first calibrated the…
Astronomical observations from small galaxies to the largest scales in the universe can be consistently explained by the simple idea of dark matter. The nature of dark matter is however still unknown. Empirically it cannot be any of the…