Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78: 333
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-5820-2

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

MARTA: a high-energy cosmic-ray detector concept for high-accuracy muon measurement

¹ LIP, Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas, Braga, Coimbra and Lisbon, Portugal
² IST, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal
³ Observatório Pierre Auger, Malargüe, Argentina
⁴ CBPF, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
⁵ INFN, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli and Dipartimento di Fisica “E. Pancini”, Università di Napoli “Federico II”, Naples, Italy
⁶ Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
⁷ Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Física de São Carlos, IFSC/USP, São Paulo, Brazil
⁸ Universidade Estadual de Campinas, IFGW, Campinas, SP, Brazil
⁹ Fermilab, Chicago, USA
¹⁰ Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
¹¹ Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
¹² Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

^* e-mail: pimenta@lip.pt

Received: 20 December 2017
Accepted: 17 April 2018
Published online: 24 April 2018

Abstract

A new concept for the direct measurement of muons in air showers is presented. The concept is based on resistive plate chambers (RPCs), which can directly measure muons with very good space and time resolution. The muon detector is shielded by placing it under another detector able to absorb and measure the electromagnetic component of the showers such as a water-Cherenkov detector, commonly used in air shower arrays. The combination of the two detectors in a single, compact detector unit provides a unique measurement that opens rich possibilities in the study of air showers.