Will Atmospheric Moisture Interfere with Muon Flux Rates?

The pupose of this experiment is to determine if Moisture in the atmosphere will interfere with muon flux rates

It is hypothesized that water will interact with the muons and or slow down the weaker muons before that can be collected and counted. There as the moisture in the atmosphere increases it is hypothesized the muon counts will go down and negative correlation will exist.

In order to collect data, two scintillator paddles were stacked and placed on the 4th floor Of the Olin building at FIT in Melbourne Florida. The rate counts for the top and bottlom paddles were set at 20Hz and 23Hz. Once the rate counts were set, a histogram performance graph was run. Looking at he performancey graph for both paddles the bell shape curves were ideal directly on top of eachother. Once the Paddles were calibrated, an ST 3 30 command was inititated to collect muons for 30 minute intervals. Using the NOAA website and the location of FIT campus the Humidity and dewpoints were collected at the top of every hour. Total Muon counts for the paddles per hour were compared to the average dewpoint and humidity level in that same hour. The data was collected for a week and half every morning and every afternoon. The data was placed on an excel spreadsheet. Using the function tool a correlation coefficient was calculated. If th r-value is greater than an .81 -1.00 there is a positive correlation and is the r-value is a -.81 -1.00 there is a negative correlation. Any value between -.8 to +.8 will result in a non correlation.

In conclusion, after collecting 94 sample points, the r-value correlation coefficient for Humidity and Muon Flux was -0.84, meaning there was a slight negative correlation. Therefore, the data suggest that water in atmosphere seems to reduce the muon flux. In the research students would like to seal and submerge the paddles underwater or surrounded by water tanks. This will allow the students to reduce background noise while c
comparing total counts for each paddle to coincidence rates between the paddles.