Simulation accuracy of long range muon propagation in medium: analysis of error sources

Abstract

Knowledge of atmospheric muon flux intensity at large depths is extremely important for neutrino telescopes located deep under ground, water or ice. One of the methods to transform muon sea-level spectrum into depth one is to apply Monte Carlo technique which directly takes into account stochastical nature of energy loss. In order to decrease computation time down to acceptable level one has to use simplifications resulting in systematic errors which in some cases may distort result essentially. Here in this paper we present our analysis for dependence of computed depth muon flux upon the most important parameters of muon transport Monte Carlo algorithm which was done with the MUM (MUons+Medium) code. Contribution of different simplifications to the resulting error is considered, ranked and compared with uncertainties which come from parametrization accuracy both for sea-level muon spectrum and for muon cross sections.