Atmospheric-weighted temperature and its influence on cosmic ray muons

Abstract

To study the dependence of the muon rate flux on temperature we need to have some measure of atmospheric temperature above the detection site. Atmospheric-weighted temperature, known also as the effective temperature, is defined as the temperature of an atmosphere that accounts for the temperature of the real atmosphere with its varying conditions. In this paper, the influence of the atmospheric temperature on the observed muon flux was investigated and the results obtained were discussed. Cosmic ray data were obtained using a KACST muon detector, which had been in operation since 2002, located at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Rc is ~14 GV). Radiosonde data were used to calculate two types of weighted temperature, namely dry and wet temperatures for all atmospheric profiles.