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The Extreme Energy Events experiment (EEE) is a cosmic ray observatory made of about 60 muon telescopes based on Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) detectors. The EEE experiment has two main targets: a scientific and a dissemination.... more
The Extreme Energy Events experiment (EEE) is a cosmic ray observatory made of about 60 muon telescopes based on Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) detectors. The EEE experiment has two main targets: a scientific and a dissemination. The EEE collaboration has also developed a large set of portable scintillator-based detectors, named Cosmic Box (CB), mainly used for educational purposes. The CB allows students to perform cosmic ray counting measurements in several environments. CBs are made of two 15 × 15 × 1 cm scintillators read by two 3 × 3 mm2 SiPMs operated in coincidence. Three CBs were deployed in Nuraxi Figus and Seruci coal mine to perform an underground measurement of the cosmic muon flux attenuation. High school and university students were directly involved in all the stages of the measurements: from the preliminary measurements to the on-site work and data analysis.
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I. Gnesi , M. Abbrescia, C. Avanzini, L. Baldini, R. Baldini Ferroli, G. Batignani, G. Bencivenni, E. Bossini, A. Chiavassa , C. Cicalo, L. Cifarelli, F. Coccetti, E. Coccia, A. Corvaglia , D. De Gruttola, S. De Pasquale, A. Di Giovanni,... more
I. Gnesi , M. Abbrescia, C. Avanzini, L. Baldini, R. Baldini Ferroli, G. Batignani, G. Bencivenni, E. Bossini, A. Chiavassa , C. Cicalo, L. Cifarelli, F. Coccetti, E. Coccia, A. Corvaglia , D. De Gruttola, S. De Pasquale, A. Di Giovanni, M. D’Incecco, M. Dreucci, F.L. Fabbri, E. Fattibene, A. Ferraro, V. Frolov, P. Galeotti , M. Garbini, G. Gemme, S. Grazzi, C. Gustavino, D. Hatzifotiadu, F. Liciulli, P. La Rocca, A. Maggiora , O. Maragoto Rodriguez, G. Maron, B. Martelli, M.N. Mazziotta, S. Miozzi, R. Nania, F. Noferini, F. Nozzoli, M. Panareo , M.P. Panetta , R. Paoletti, W. Park, L. Perasso, F. Pilo, G. Piragino , F. Riggi, G.C. Righini, M. Rizzi, G. Sartorelli, E. Scapparone, M. Schioppa, A. Scribano, M. Selvi, S. Serci , E. Siddi, S. Squarcia, L. Stori, M. Taiuti, G. Terreni, O.B.Visnyei, M.C. Vistoli, L. Votano, M.C.S. Williams, S. Zani, A. Zichichi, R. Zuyeuski a Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche E. Fermi, Roma, Italy b INFN and Dipartimento di Fisica Unive...
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A simulation tool based on GEMC framework to describe the MRPC telescope of the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is presented. The EEE experiment is mainly devoted to the study of the secondary cosmic muons by using MRPC telescope... more
A simulation tool based on GEMC framework to describe the MRPC telescope of the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is presented. The EEE experiment is mainly devoted to the study of the secondary cosmic muons by using MRPC telescope distributed in high schools and research centres in Italy and at CERN. This takes into account the muon interactions with EEE telescopes and the structures surrounding the experimental apparata; it consists of a dedicated event generator producing realistic muon distribution and a detailed geometry description of the detector. Microscopic behaviour of MRPCs has been included to produce experimental-like data. A method to estimate the chamber efficiency directly from data has been implemented and tested by comparing the experimental and simulated polar angle distribution of muons.
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Due to their efficiency, tracking capabilities and long-term operational conditions, Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) may be used in a stable location in coincidence with additional detectors fixed to other parts of a civil... more
Due to their efficiency, tracking capabilities and long-term operational conditions, Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) may be used in a stable location in coincidence with additional detectors fixed to other parts of a civil building, to detect relative displacements of different parts of the building due to long term deformations of the structure. In this contribution we report the results of two different measurements carried out in the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania (with three floors above the ground and an underground basement), using one of the MRPC telescopes of the Extreme Energy Events project, in coincidence with two scintillator-based muon telescopes located in various positions inside the building. Experimental results obtained by these measurements campaigns over a period of about three months are reported, together with a discussion about the performance of the technique. The sensitivity of the method is also discussed by means ...
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The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) experiment, dedicated to the study of secondary cosmic rays, is arguably the largest detector system in the world implemented by Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers. The EEE network consists of 60 telescopes... more
The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) experiment, dedicated to the study of secondary cosmic rays, is arguably the largest detector system in the world implemented by Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers. The EEE network consists of 60 telescopes distributed over all the Italian territory; each telescope is made of three MRPCs and allows to reconstruct the trajectory of cosmic muons with high efficiency and optimal angular resolution. A distinctive feature of the EEE network is that almost all telescopes are housed in High Schools and managed by groups of students and teachers, who previously took care of their construction at CERN. This peculiarity is a big plus for the experiment, which combines the scientific relevance of its objectives with effective outreach activities. The unconventional location of the detectors, mainly in standard classrooms of school buildings, with heterogeneous maintenance conditions and without controlled temperature and dedicated power lines, is a unique test fi...
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Various experiments are searching for detectors that can cover large areas (as in the present LHC experiments) with excellent timing performances and insensitivity to magnetic field. A detector based on scintillators coupled to SiPM can... more
Various experiments are searching for detectors that can cover large areas (as in the present LHC experiments) with excellent timing performances and insensitivity to magnetic field. A detector based on scintillators coupled to SiPM can fulfil these requirements. SiPMs are indeed replacing the standard PhotoMultiplier technology thanks to the many advantages, with the corresponding possibility to achieve also higher segmentations in calorimetry or other applications. Also in view of future colliders experiments like HL-LHC or FCC or medical applications like TOF-PET, an important R&D on timing performances of SiPMs-scintillator detectors has begun, with the goal of including them in the list of possible 4-D tracking-timing devices. An R&D on SiPM coupled to scintillator time resolution has been performed in a cosmic ray setup. Different kind of SiPMs, geometries of SiPMs coupled to the scintillator and different size of scintillator have been also studied. A time resolution of ∼ 69 ...
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The Extreme Energy Events experiment (EEE), a strategic project of Centro Fermi, aims to study Extensive Air Showers (EAS) with a network of Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) detectors, mainly installed in Italian high schools. The... more
The Extreme Energy Events experiment (EEE), a strategic project of Centro Fermi, aims to study Extensive Air Showers (EAS) with a network of Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) detectors, mainly installed in Italian high schools. The network presently counts 59 muon telescopes, each composed by three planes of MRPC. The total covered area is more than 3 x 10^5 km^2. Thanks to the tracking capabilities of these detectors, their time synchronization and the localization in town clusters, it is possible to study Air Showers and to investigate long distance correlations between them. Up to now 5 long data taking of several months each have been performed, starting in 2015 and simoultaneously involving from 30 to 50 telescopes. The study of EAS requires excellent performance in terms of time and spatial resolution, efficiency, tracking capability and long term stability. In this work, we report a description of the system, its performances and some of the main physics results obtaine...
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The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) project is an extended array for cosmic rays survey. It was conceived by Antonino Zichichi and supported by the Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche “Enrico Fermi” with the collaboration of... more
The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) project is an extended array for cosmic rays survey. It was conceived by Antonino Zichichi and supported by the Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche “Enrico Fermi” with the collaboration of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR). This experiment is aimed to study cosmic rays of extreme high energy, and related phenomena. To achieve this goal, a network of nearly 50 muon telescopes has been installed in high schools, distributed throughout the Italian territory, either as single stations or clusters. During the second coordinated run of data taking, which ended in May 2016, 25 billion muon tracks were detected and reconstructed. This huge amount of data, allows us to undertake various studies: the dependence of the local muon flux on solar activity; the sky anisotropy on sub-TeV scale; event correl...
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Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet.
The goal of the PolarquEEEst experiment was to measure the cosmic charged particle rate at latitudes greater than 66◦ N, where no systematic and accurate measurements at sea level have ever been performed. A latitude range well above the... more
The goal of the PolarquEEEst experiment was to measure the cosmic charged particle rate at latitudes greater than 66◦ N, where no systematic and accurate measurements at sea level have ever been performed. A latitude range well above the Arctic Circle was explored on board of a sailboat, up to the unprecedented northernmost value of 82◦07′ N. In this paper a description of the experimental set-up is reported, then the procedures for calibration and data analysis are described in detail. The results show that the rate measured in this latitude range stays constant within a novel accuracy of ±1%.
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The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is an experiment aimed at the detection of secondary cosmic ray muons. It consists of a sparse array of about 60 telescopes, based on Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPCs), mostly distributed... more
The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is an experiment aimed at the detection of secondary cosmic ray muons. It consists of a sparse array of about 60 telescopes, based on Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPCs), mostly distributed throughout the Italian territory, mainly in high schools locations, and at CERN. The telescopes are now operational and taking data since more than ten years with a high duty cycle and detection efficiency. The analysis activity is currently in progress and focused on several items, including the detailed study of the muon ux under dfferent conditions, its connection with atmospheric and solar events, the detection of extensive air showers and the search for long distance correlations between different extensive air showers. In this paper an overall description of the experiment will be given, together with its educational fallout. The operation of the whole array is also discussed by showing the most recent results obtained from the analysis of the c...
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Abstract The existence of time correlations in detectors separated by distances much larger than the size of the highest energy extensive air showers (EAS) has been long discussed over the years. Several mechanisms have been proposed to... more
Abstract The existence of time correlations in detectors separated by distances much larger than the size of the highest energy extensive air showers (EAS) has been long discussed over the years. Several mechanisms have been proposed to justify the existence of such events and, in the last decade, some experiments have also tried to search for correlations on a large scale distance, beyond one hundred kilometers. The approaches were based on the construction of clusters of detectors placed at large relative distances, with the capability of selecting extensive air showers. Within this context, the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) experiment can provide new inputs in the search for long distance correlations, thanks to its sparse array of muon telescopes spanning all the Italian territory. The EEE telescopes are taking data since more than 10 years and enough statistics has been already accumulated to be able to search for such events, whose observation is intrinsically difficult due to the very low rates expected, many order of magnitudes smaller than the overall cosmic ray flux. In order to reduce the accidental correlations, different analysis approaches have been investigated for the selection of EAS events with the EEE telescopes. In this paper we will present preliminary results obtained by analyzing a large fraction of the statistics currently available.
This paper describes the simulation framework of the extreme energy events (EEE) experiment. EEE is a network of cosmic muon trackers, each made of three multi-gap resistive plate chambers (MRPC), able to precisely measure the absolute... more
This paper describes the simulation framework of the extreme energy events (EEE) experiment. EEE is a network of cosmic muon trackers, each made of three multi-gap resistive plate chambers (MRPC), able to precisely measure the absolute muon crossing time and the muon integrated angular flux at the ground level. The response of a single MRPC and the combination of three chambers have been implemented in a GEANT4-based framework (GEMC) to study the telescope response. The detector geometry, as well as details about the surrounding materials and the location of the telescopes have been included in the simulations in order to realistically reproduce the experimental set-up of each telescope. A model based on the latest parametrization of the cosmic muon flux has been used to generate single muon events. After validating the framework by comparing simulations to selected EEE telescope data, it has been used to determine detector parameters not accessible by analysing experimental data on...
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The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) network consists in a sparse array of telescopes based on Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers, installed in high school buildings all over the Italian territory and at CERN. Besides the many research... more
The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) network consists in a sparse array of telescopes based on Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers, installed in high school buildings all over the Italian territory and at CERN. Besides the many research activities concerned with extensive air shower detection, long distance correlation studies and additional physics results obtained during the last decade, the EEE project is extensively employed for educational and outreach activities, constituting a unique opportunity to promote a fruitful and close collaboration between students, high-school teachers and researchers. The involvement is at all levels, from the construction of the chambers during short stages at CERN over the past 15 years, with the participation of several hundred high-school students and teachers, to the installation, monitoring and data taking with the telescopes by highschool teams, to masterclasses, physics lectures, data analysis sessions and joint discussions on the results and thei...
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In the original version of this article, the names of four authors were missing in the author list: L. Perasso, O. Pinazza, C. Pinto and S. Pisano.