Measurement of low energy component of the flux of cosmic rays using nuclear track detectors

Abstract

The effects induced by muons with very low energies are usually neglected. In fact, they could represent a source of radioactive background due to capture processes in different materials, which in most of cases produce radioactive isotopes, and thus they must be taken into account. Plastic track detectors have been used in the present paper to measure the ratio between the vertical and horizontal components of the flux of very low energy terrestrial muons at ground level. The data have been collected during 160 days.