Observation of the February 2011 Forbush decrease by the EEE telescopes

The Forbush decrease following the large X2 solar flare on mid-February 2011 has been observed by the muon telescopes of the EEE Project, which are located in several Italian sites and at CERN. Data from two different telescopes of the EEE network have been analyzed and compared to those measured by neutron monitor stations. The variation of the muon counting rate during the Forbush decrease was also extracted for different intervals of the azimuthal angle of the incoming muons

Observation of the February 2011 Forbush decrease by the EEE telescopes

The Forbush decrease following the large X2 solar flare on mid-February 2011 has been observed by the muon telescopes of the EEE Project, which are located in several Italian sites and at CERN. Data from two different telescopes of the EEE network have been analyzed and compared to those measured by neutron monitor stations. The variation of the muon counting rate during the Forbush decrease was also extracted for different intervals of the azimuthal angle of the incoming muons

A multigap resistive plate chamber array for the Extreme Energy Events project

The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is a Centro Fermi - CERN - INFN - MIUR Collaboration Project for the study of extremely high energy cosmic rays, which exploits the Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) technology. The excellent time resolution and good tracking capability of this kind of detector allows us to study Extensive Air Showers (EAS) with an array of MRPC telescopes distributed across the Italian territory. Each telescope is installed in a high school, with the further goal to introduce students to particle and astroparticle Physics. The status of the experiment and the results obtained are reported

Time correlation measurements from extensive air showers detected by the EEE telescopes

Time correlated events due to cosmic muons from extensive air showers have been detected by means of telescope pairs of the EEE (Extreme Energy Events) Project array. The coincidence rate, properly normalized for detector acceptance, efficiency and altitude location, has been extracted as a function of the relative distance between the telescopes. The results have been also compared with additional measurements carried out by small scintillator detectors at various distances

The EEE Project: cosmic rays, multigap resistive plate chambers and high school students

The Extreme Energy Events Project has been designed to join the scientific interest of a cosmic rays physics experiment with the enormous didactic potentiality deriving from letting it be carried out by high school students and teachers. After the initial phase, the experiment is starting to take data continuously, and the first interesting physics results have been obtained, demonstrating the validity of the idea of running a real physics investigation in these peculiar conditions. Here an overview of its structure and status is presented, together with some studies about detector performance and first physics results

A Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers array for the Extreme Energy Events Project

The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is a Centro Fermi - CERN - INFN - MIUR Collaboration Project, for the study of extremely high-energy cosmic rays, which exploits the Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) technology. The excellent time resolution and good tracking capability of this detector allows us to study Extensive Air Showers (EAS) with an array of telescopes distributed all over the Italian territory. Each telescope is installed in a High School, with the additional goal to introduce students to particle and astroparticle Physics. The EEE array is composed, so far, of 47 telescopes, each made of three MRPC planes, spanning more than 10 degrees in latitude and 11 in longitude, organized in clusters and single telescope stations. The status of the experiment and the results, obtained during two recent coordinated data taking periods, will be reported. The observation of Forbush decreases, coincidence events among different telescopes and the muon decay, using more than 5 billion tracks collected in the last few months, are of particular interest

The Extreme Energy Events experiment: cosmics rays multigap resistive plate chambers and high school students

The Extreme Energy Events project has been conceived to join the scientific interest of a real cosmic rays physics experiment with the enormous didactic potentiality deriving from letting it be carried out by high school students and teachers. After the initial phase, the experiment is starting to take data continuously, and the first interesting physics results have been obtained, demonstrating the validity of the idea of running a real physics investigation in these peculiar conditions. In this paper an overview of its structure and status is presented; also few results obtained at the sites are included

Proposal for an MRPC system with high-precision timing in the LVD structure

The purpose of this paper is to present a project in order to verify -without the need of knowing the distance CERN-Gran Sasso- the discovery made by the OPERA Collaboration concerning the speed of the CERN neutrinos. The project consists of two parts. A simple one and a less simple one. Both have the great advantage of being totally independent of the knowledge of the distance, ≃ 732 km, between the two Labs, CERN and LNGS, where the neutrinos are produced and detected, respectively. The "simple" version of this project is based on the high-energy horizontal cosmic muons, which traverse LVD and OPERA detectors, thus allowing to cross-calibrate the timing systems of both experiments in a way which is totally independent of the TOF measurements of CNGS. This component of the project is being studied in collaboration with the OPERA group, as the time stabilities of both experiments are needed. In fact it is since a long time that the two groups are engaged with this problem. In this paper we will present and discuss the "less simple" part which allows to establish, at the highest possible level of accuracy, if (v > c) effects really exist. © Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2012

Proposal for an MRPC system with high-precision timing in the LVD structure

The purpose of this paper is to present a project in order to verify -without the need of knowing the distance CERN-Gran Sasso- the discovery made by the OPERA Collaboration concerning the speed of the CERN neutrinos. The project consists of two parts. A simple one and a less simple one. Both have the great advantage of being totally independent of the knowledge of the distance, ≃ 732 km, between the two Labs, CERN and LNGS, where the neutrinos are produced and detected, respectively. The "simple" version of this project is based on the high-energy horizontal cosmic muons, which traverse LVD and OPERA detectors, thus allowing to cross-calibrate the timing systems of both experiments in a way which is totally independent of the TOF measurements of CNGS. This component of the project is being studied in collaboration with the OPERA group, as the time stabilities of both experiments are needed. In fact it is since a long time that the two groups are engaged with this problem. In this paper we will present and discuss the "less simple" part which allows to establish, at the highest possible level of accuracy, if (v > c) effects really exist