The detection of cosmic rays, and of ionizing radiation in general, is commonly carried out using ionizable materials —where ions are produced— and photonizable materials —where photons are produced—; from these materials, radiation detectors are built. Because of this, practically any material can be used to detect ionizing radiation. In this talk, we present the planning, design, construction, characterization, and operation of a cosmic ray detector based on an 10 cm × 10 cm × 20 cm Aluminum block, to which two Hamamatsu H10493-12 photomultiplier tubes were attached on one of the rectangular faces of the Aluminum block, separated by 12.5 cm center to center. On the top and bottom, mounted on a 24 cm × 24 cm × 50 cm structure, we placed a detector plane (with a volume of 10 cm × 10 cm × 1 cm) built from 10 Geiger-Müller tubes of 10 cm long and 1 cm diameter, protected with 2 mm-thick acrylic sheets. The Aluminum block was positioned coaxially with the two detector planes, resting on the lower plane. Using the detector planes as a telescope, we determined the flux of cosmic rays as [0.81 ± 0.03] sr⁻¹·cm⁻²·s⁻¹, which agrees well with the globally accepted value. Using the detector planes as vetoes for cosmic radiation, we determined that photons are produced in the Aluminum block, which are polarized —possibly generated by the Cherenkov effect or by atomic excitation–de-excitation—, and that the number of photons produced depends proportionally on the distance traveled by the incident radiation in the Aluminum block, in good agreement with the simulation results of the process using GEANT4. We present technical details of the planning, design, construction, characterization, and operation of the cosmic ray detector, as well as the preliminary physical results obtained.

carlospinedo1293@gmail.com

Carlos Pinedo Guadarrama