Upgrade of Apatity Neutron Monitor

Monte Carlo simulation of the neutron monitor yield function

“…Depending on the electronics unit for each of the 18 neutron counter tubes in PSNM, the measured t d values are between 19 and 29 μs. Other NMs in the worldwide network have used dead times ranging from 10 to 1200 μs [e.g., Balabin et al , ].…”

“…Depending on the electronics unit for each of the 18 neutron counter tubes in PSNM, the measured t d values are between 19 and 29 μs. Other NMs in the worldwide network have used dead times ranging from 10 to 1200 μs [e.g., Balabin et al, 2015]. Figure 4 and Table 1 present the yield functions with and without the geomagnetic field for the actual dead time configuration of the detector.…”

“…In order to estimate the effect of the dead time, t d , in the simulations, we have also applied various values of t d uniformly to all tubes. We compared the simulated PSNM responses for five values: (i) the ideal case t d = 0 s, (ii) t d = 2 × 10 −5 s (a typical value within the range actually used at PSNM and numerous other NMs), (iii) t d = 1 × 10 −4 s, (iv) t d = 1.2 × 10 −3 s (one of the values used at the Apatity NM) [ Balabin et al , ], and (v) t d = 4 × 10 −3 s to avoid counting multiple neutrons due to the same PP [ Ruffolo et al , ]. For this comparison, we do not apply a geomagnetic field in the simulation, in order to examine the effect of the dead time at all rigidities above the atmospheric cutoff.…”