Abstract. Conventional real-time coincidence systems use electronic circuitry to detect coincident pulses (hardware coincidence). In this work, a new concept of coincidence system based on real-time software (software coincidence) is presented. This system is based on the recurrent supervision of the analogue-to-digital converters status, which is described in detail. A prototype has been designed and built using a low-cost development platform. It has been applied to two different experimental sets for cosmic ray muon detection. Experimental muon measurements recorded simultaneously using conventional hardware coincidence and our software coincidence system have been compared, yielding identical results. These measurements have also been validated using simultaneous neutron monitor observations. This new software coincidence system provides remarkable advantages such as higher simplicity of interconnection and adjusting. Thus, our system replaces, at least, three Nuclear Instrument Modules (NIMs) required by conventional coincidence systems, reducing its cost by a factor of 40 and eliminating pulse delay adjustments.
Muon telescopes are instruments devoted to the observation of muons. They are produced in the atmosphere by means of the interaction of cosmic ray and solar energetic particles with atmospheric nuclei. Muons, as cosmic rays that produce them, present non uniform arrival directions and temporal variations at ground level and, along certain observation directions, could forecast the arrival of Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections (ICMEs) at the Earth, even earlier than neutron monitors. However, multidirectional muon telescopes are not easily affordable because of their complexity, size and cost. In this work, we present the Muon Impact Tracer and Observer (MITO) design concept. It is composed of only two stacked scintillators (1 m 2 ) with an optional lead layer that allows the filtering of unwanted particles depending on the type of application. In the case presented here, a 10 cm lead layer corresponding to the lead of a 3NM64 neutron monitor around which MITO has been built. Eight photomultipliers (PMTs) gather the light emerging from the four lateral sides of the scintillators. MITO has been conceived not only to achieve muon flux registering, but also to register muon arrival directions through the capture and analysis of multiple PMT pulse height data. The number of scintillators and electronic components is reduced, simplifying its design and construction and reducing complexity, volume, weight, power consumption and cost, and thus, achieving a reasonable performance-cost ratio in comparison to other directional telescopes based on two-layer matrices. The first prototype was shipped from Spain to Antarctica where it is now recording data. Some preliminary results are also presented.
A new neutron monitor was installed at Juan Carlos I Spanish Antarctic Base (S 62 • 39 46 , W 60 • 23 20 , 12 m asl) last January 2019. The Base is located at Livingston Island (South Shetland Archipelago) close to the Antarctic Peninsula. The vertical rigidity cutoff for this new station is estimated as 3.52 GV. This new station (Antarctic Cosmic Ray Observatory) is composed by a BF3-based 3NM64 (ORCA) and 3 bare BF3 counters (ORCB). The neutron monitor is complemented by a muon telescope sharing a common room in a single stack. ORCA and ORCB with the Castilla-La Mancha neutron monitor (CaLMa) are the Spanish contribution to the Neutron Monitor Data Base. Juan Carlos I Base is a summer station, that that it operates only during the antarctic summer. This affects to communications and data transmission implying two different modes of data transmission, one minute resolution data and almost real time in summer and one hour resolution data that is sent once a day. Nevertheless, data with one minute resolution is stored in a NAS hard drive system along the year. First measurements and future plans are presented in this work.
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