QuarkNet on the Lena - April 1, 2016*

So I was looking around for another great experience like I had at TU Dresden a little over a year ago when a new opportunity fell into my lap.

"We could use someone to monitor counts at our THEME station," wrote my new friend Arkady from the University of Northern Northern Siberia. I immediately e-mailed back.

"What is THEME?"

"Through-Heart-of-Earth-Muon-Experiment." It is a cosmic ray counting experiment. When you get a coincidence, you make a tick-mark on the pad.

I queried, "Do you mean detecting muons that come up through the earth and recording them on a pad of paper?"

"The rate is low," parried Arkady.

The argument was ironclad, so after changing planes in Atlanta, Amsterdam, Moscow, Atlanta again, and Novosibirsk, a stout Antonov AN-2 landed me in Ochin Kholodny, Russia, at the northern end of the Lena River. Ochin Kholodny is sort of like South Bend: flat landscape, river, snow...just way more so. I imagine the people would be quite hospitable if anyone else lived here. 

It has been a great experience so far. Each day, I leave my hut, forage for firewood, return to my hut, stoke the fire, then forage for more firewood, then return to the hut again, stoke the fire again, etc. That is pretty much what I do. Every second Thursday, Arkady comes to check on me and renew my supply of potato soup.

I've seen plenty of muon hits but all were eliminated by the veto counters above the main detector. Well, there was one zoo event but I think that was from when a bear chewed on the signal cable to one of the PMTs.

I'll be back at Notre Dame soon after they are able to get the AN-2 started. As always, I'll leave you with some pictures: