Mars: a study of the burst spectrum in iron

Abstract

Using the Durham spectrograph, muon electromagnetic interactions have been studied both theoretically and experimentally. The current best theoretical cross-sections for muon interaction processes in iron have been numerically calculated and tabulated. The muon burst probabilities and spectra have been determined for a 1000 gm cm(^-2) iron absorber. Experimentally the study has been divided into two aspects of muon interactions. Firstly, a study using three different analysis techniques has been done to determine if positive or negative muons interact abnormally. No observable interaction charge asymmetry has been observed, the overall interaction charge ratio for bursts of > 2 particles being 1.020 ± 0.032. Secondly, a study has been done to determine the differential muon burst spectra in a thick iron absorber over various muon energy ranges. A comparison has been made between the theoretical and experimental spectra. Over all energy ranges of this experiment (7 GeV to 1 TeV incident muon energy) no deviation has been observed between the two sets of spectra.