INSTRWENTS

&METHoos
IN PHVSICS

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 399 (1997) 285-300

Penetration of cosmic ray muons into the Earth

Jack L. Uretsky”
Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 604392 USA

Received 18 February 1997; received in revised form 18 July 1997

Abstract
I present a new analytic solution to the integro-differentialequation that describes the underground propagation of cosmic
ray muons. The exact solution is given in the form of an infinite series in inverse powers of the muon energy. Convergence
is proved for sufficiently high energies.
The series is shown to be summable in closed form, in certain approximations. The closed forms provides analytic
continuations to low energies of the series solution. One approximation resembles a well-known solution that ignores discrete
energy loss, but this approximation introduces additional constants. I apply the approximate solution using an expression for
the surface muon flux, derived from the primary flux, as a boundary condition. The result predicts the underground muon
vertical intensity over seven orders of magnitude (10 km depth), compares favorably with published Monte Carlo calculations,
and can be performed in seconds on a personal computer.
As an application, the same approximation predicts the “catastrophic” energy-loss event rate at Soudan II.

1. Introduction
Physicists were attempting to describe the penetra-
tion of cosmic rays through matter before muons were
known to exist and before relativistic quantum electro-
dynamics had been formulated. Cosmic ray physicists
were originally interested in shower development;
Rossi and Greisen’s review article [l] credits Carl-
son and Oppenheimer [2] and Bhabha and Heitler [3]
with the seminal contributions to the subject. These
early investigations led to the description of cosmic
ray penetration into matter as a diffision process.
Underground observations during World War II
showed that cosmic rays penetrate deeply into the
*Tel.: +l 630 252 8570; fax: +l 630 252 5047; e-mail:
jlu@hep.anl.gov.
Earth [4]. Hayakawa et al. [4] credit Greisen [5] with
the observation that muons constituted the penetrating
component. Nishimura [6] applied shower theory to
the problem of muon penetration into the earth and
exhibited a formal solution to the resulting diffusion
equation.
The dill&ion equation is easily solved in the ap-
proximation that hard collision losses are neglected.
The Nishimura solution, which includes the effect
of the hard collisions, gives the integrated intensity,
but not the spectrum. The solution also appears to
be numerically tractable only for a power law spec-
trum with integral spectral index, an inconvenient
limitation.
Gurentsov et al. [7] have attempted to include
the effect of collision losses through an ansatz that
makes a simple modification to the no-collision-loss

0168-9002/971$17.00 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

PIZSO168-9002(97)00996-O
286 J.L. Uretskyl Nucl. Instr. and h4eth. in Phys. Rex A 399 (1997) 285-300

solution. It is not clear, however, to what extent with

the modified solution is in fact a solution of

I
I
the diffusion equation with hard collision losses XP
Hip = dxp.
included. B-’ x + yiE
The conventional modern-day approach to the
The symbols in the equation have the following
diffusion problem is the Monte Carlo calculation,
meanings:
first applied to the study of underground muons
i stands for either rc or K
by Bollinger [8]. See Ref. [9] for a more recent
C,(E/EO)-P estimated primary flux, with C,
discussion.
= 1.6 f 0.2 cm-’ s-’ sr-t GeV-’
The purpose of the present work is to present an
analytic solution to the l-dimensional diffusion prob- Eo 1 GeV
P primary index, usually taken to be
lem, including the effect of the hard collisions. The
about 2.7
results provide a simple, inexpensive way to calculate
= 1 - (Mp/A4i)’
the spectrum of cosmic ray muons propagating under- Zi the mass of the indicated particle
ground down to depths of 10 km (water-equivalent).
Bi branching ratio of the indicated
The calculations may be done handily on a personal
particle to muons
computer, and the computational time is measured
gni and gnn respective fractions of mesons
in seconds. The method is currently in use for cal-
and nucleons per collision
culating background for searching for high energy
of a high energy nucleon
neutrinos that may be emitted by active galactic
with a nucleus, assuming scaling
nuclei [lo].
Pi = (MiI”p )*
The next section briefly reviews the derivation of
Yi =&co4
the surface muon spectrum from the primary cos-
zi lifetime of meson i
mic ray flux. Section 3 states the diffision problem
ho scale height of the upper atmosphere
to be solved, and recalls the well-known solution
(6.43 km)
that ignores discrete collisions. Section 4 gives an
C as usual, the speed of light
exact solution in the form of an infinite series. Sec-
I3 the zenith angle of the incident
tion 5 presents a proof of convergence of the series.
primary; for zenith angles very close
Section 6 describes two approximations to the exact
to 90” this will be appreciably
result, one for high energies and the other for the
different from the zenith angle of a
entire energy range. Section 7 compares the latter
muon at or below the surface
approximation with Monte Carlo results and with
The scaling parameters have the following values
experiment. Section 8 presents, as an application,
(see [ll]):
an estimate of the frequency of large energy-loss
events from cosmic-ray muons at Soudan II. The
gnn = 0.146, g,,k = 0.0162, g,,,, = 0.203.
conclusions and suggestions for further work are in
Section 9. Dar makes the important observation that there is a
ridiculously simple, and quite accurate, approximation
for the integrals Hip. First observe that for values of a
2. Surface muon flux less than unity

J J (
I
z* 1 z* * z*
The differential muon flux dF(E)/dE at the
dz -= dz --a~. (3)
surface of the earth may be deduced from the (I z+b 0 z+b z + bJa >
cosmic-ray primary flux following, e.g. Dar [l l] or
Gaisser [ 121: Dar’s approximation is

J
I
dW ) Z* 1
- = Cp(E/Eo)-* C CriBixHip (1) dz (4)
dE i 1 - Snn 0 zfb= p+(p+ 1)b’
 J. L. Uretsky/ Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Rex A 399 (1997) 285-300 287

Surface Vertical Muon Spectrum vs. Muon Energy

Predicted and Experimental Differential Flux times E *I

100 E(GeV)

Fig. 1. Predicted and experimental vertical muon spectrum (multiplied by E2.‘) at the surface of the Earth vs. muon energy. only data taken
near the Earth’s surface are included in this comparison. Data taken deep underground are included in Fig. 4. The data are from Rastin
[23] (filled circles), Nandi and Simha [24] (filled squares) and Allhofer et al. [25] (open squares). The curves show the predictions for
the three indicated spectral indices. The flux falls off at low energies because of muon decay, an effect not included in the present theory.

The approximation is obviously exact for b either 3. Underground muons - general

zero or much larger than unity. Direct evalu-
ation by numerical integration reveals that for a
p-value of 2.7 th e approximation differs from the
integral by less than 3% for any positive value
ofb.
Evaluation of Eq. (1) is now easy. Fig. 1 shows a
comparison with data, of the vertical muon spectrum
at the surface predicted from Eq. (1). ’ Also illus-
trated in Fig. 1 is the effect of making small changes
in the primary index from the value 2.70. An index in
the range 2.70-2.75 accords well with the data above
a few hundred GeV.
’ Gaissers’s expression for the vertical muon fhtx (p. 70) is
formally different from my Eq. (1) evaluated by Dar’s trick, but
the predictions are not distinguishable from those in Gaisser’s log
plot, Fig. 6.1.
Rossi’s [13] discussion of cascade showers is a
starting point for a discussion of muon propaga-
tion through the ground. The object of discussion
is the differential spectrum f&E) dE of muons
with energy E at depth t underground. Define [14]
&E, v) du dt to be the probability density for a muon
of energy E to lose a fraction between v and v + dv
of its energy in traversing an increment dt of ground.
The probability C$is the sum of the four probabilities
4b, ~~011~&air, 4ion which, respectively, correspond
to the four modes of energy loss, bremsstrahlung,
nuclear collisions, pair production and ionization.
The ionization loss is continuous. The contributions
of the other loss mechanisms are shown in Fig. 2,
where it may be seen that hard bremsstrahhmg is the
288 J.L. Uretsky/ Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300

with a and b taken as constants despite their logarith-

mic energy dependence. This is, in fact, not a bad as-
sumption because the high energy end of the muon
spectrum is strongly suppressed. Evaluating the log-
arithms at an energy of 1 TeV, the variation of the
logarithmic terms over the important energy range,
about 100 GeV to tens of TeV, is small. The error
may be expected to influence mostly the distribution
of low energy muons which are not of interest in many
applications.
Eq. (5) then becomes

af(xA
~ -@+bE)v
ax

Fig. 2. Energy loss probability versus fractional loss of energy by where &E,u) includes only “discrete” losses from
energetic muons. The Figure is reproduced from Adair and Kasha hard collisions. If the hard collisions are neglected,
[14]. The curves show the probability of fractional energy loss u then Eq. (7) becomes
from bremsstrahhmg (&,). pair production (~$a) and nuclear colli-
sions (+a). The product 4(u) du gives the probability of fractional
afb9
~ -(a+bE)~xO.
energy loss between 11and v + dr.
ax (8)

The solution of Eq. (8) may be written down by

dominant loss mechanisms for large fractional energy
inspection once the spectrum at the surface f(0, E) is
losses.
given:
The dilksion equation for the muons passing
through the earth is [ 131 2

where f (0, E) = dF(E)/dE. A solution of the equation

that omits the hard-collision term will be referred to
as “the soft” solution.

The assumption that muon energy losses may be di-

vided into “continuous” and “discrete” losses then per- 4. Including hard collisions
mits me to rewrite the let? hand side of Eq. (5) so that
The integro-differential equation, Eq. (7), is some-
-=-
df af afdE what simplified by the assumption of high-energy scal-
ax+dxdE. (6)
dx ing for the cross-sections involved. Then 4 becomes
The dE/dx term in the last equation represents the a function only of u. The resulting equation is then or-
continuous energy change of a muon with depth. Tra- dinarily Mellin transformed with respect to the energy
dition [ 141 dictates that we write dE/dx = -(a + bE) E [ 151, but this procedure is overkill in the present
instance, as the next section will demonstrate. Merely
2 My discussion differs slightly from that in Rossi; note the total expand Eq. (1) in inverse powers of the energy and
derivative on the left. then let the coefficient of each power be a function
 J.L. Uretsky /Nucl. Instr. und Meth. in Phys. Rex A 399 (1997) 285-300 289

J
a,(x) of x that is to be determined. Letting E = E/Eo, Tk-I

then, rewrite Eq. (1) in an obvious notation: dzk exp{[b - n(p + I - k)

0

f(% s) = c,c NXx, s) (10) +qp + 1+ 1 - k)lu}]

. (1%
with the subscript indicating the parent meson, 7c or
K, and This form of solution, which appears to be new, ex-
hibits the Q(X) as generated from unity by a random
walk of up to 1 steps, denoted by the k-fold integrals
fi(x,s)=yil s’ Zp dZE (-Z/vi)‘af(x)&-‘-P-‘.
0
(see, generally [ 16]), times a decaying exponential.
8-l
The soft solution is readily obtained from Eq.
(11)
(15) by setting all the I’s equal to zero. The k-fold
In what follows, I shall drop the superscript “i”, on multiple integral is then just (ebx - l)k/k!bk. The
the ~(1. soft solution follows after inserting the resulting ~(1
We may think of this expansion in inverse powers of into Eq. (1 1), inverting the order of k and I sum-
energy as a sort of “mode” expansion with Q(X) giving mations and introducing a new summation index
the intensity of the lth mode at depth t. Scattering defined by 1 =j + k (with j ranging from 0 to oe).
events will have the effect of decreasing the intensity The k-sum is then recognizable as a binomial ex-
of lower modes (lower values of I) and increasing the pansion, and the j-sum is just an expansion like that
intensity of higher modes. Muons are thus scattered of l/(1 -tz).
from lower to higher modes in this expansion. The
expansion must give Eq. ( 1) at the surface (x = 0), so
the ~1’s must all satisfy: 5. Convergence and such niceties
@1(O)= 1, 1=0,1,... . (12)
It is not hard to show that the expansion in in-
Substitution of the expansion, Eq. (11) into Eq. (7) verse powers of energy, Eq. (1 1 ), with the coefficients,
then yields a set of coupled first order differential equa- Eq. ( 15), converges. The demonstration applies to any
tions for the al’s: surface spectrum, such as that given by Eq. ( 1 ), which
is expandable in a convergent series of inverse pow-
$ + [(I + p + l)b + n(p + 1)]cq(x) ers of the energy. I will, however, simplify the dis-
cussion by taking the surface spectrum as given by
= (p + I) (F) U/-l(X) a simple power law, s-p. Extension of the proof to
(13)
more general cases is straightforward (see Appendix),

I
with the definitions although one must pay attention to the radius of con-
vergence (about the point at infinite energy) of the

J(Y) =
J 0
dt+(o)[l - (1 - a)“] (14)
expansion.
The differential
given by
spectrum is now assumed to be
and a-i(x) - 0. The solution of Eq. ( 13) that satisfies
the initial condition is
f(x, E) = E Q&-P-C (16)
Q(X) = exp{-[(p + 1 + I)b + n(p + Z)]x} I=0

The tx coefficients must satisfy

[J
x
dar
X dri exp{ [b - A( p + 1 - 1) -jy + [(I + P)b + 4p + 1- l)]ar(x) =
0
-a(p + I - l)q_l(X) (17)
+qp + 1)]2,}. ..
290 J.L. Uretskyl Nucl. Ins@. and Meth. in Phys. Rex A 399 (1997) 285-300

with the conditions ~(0) = 1; al(O) = 0, I > 1. The the spectrum where the inverse energy expansion con-
solution is verges well. When the low energy end of the spectrum
is also important, as when one wants to integrate over
‘q@) = (_& + 1- l)! the spectrum to obtain a total rate, a different strategy
(P - l>! is called for. In that case one needs to sum the in-
x exp{ -[(p + I)b + l(p + I - 1)1x} verse energy series approximately to obtain a closed

[I
x
expression that can be analytically continued to low
X dTle[b--6(P+~-2)h . .. energies. The soft solution is one such expression, but
0
the proof of convergence suggests that better approx-
(18) imations are available that take into account some of
the effects of discrete energy losses. The next section
where contains the derivation of one such approximation.

6(z) z J(z) - L(z + 1). (19)

6. Approximate inclusion of hard Bremsstrahlungs
It is clear from the definition that 6(z) is always
negative and decreases in magnitude as l/z with Adair and Kasha [ 141 invoke scaling to approximate
increasing z. the bremsstrahhmg energy loss probability for a TeV
One sees that the inverse energy expansion con- muon passing through standard rock by
verges by use of the comparison theorem [ 171. To this
end, first bound the ]LY~]‘sby noting that the multiple @b(f)= $ [I - ;(I - f) + (1 - n2] . (22)
integrals in Eq. (18) are bounded from above if each
6 is replaced by 6( p - 1). The multiple integrals may Then
then be evaluated to obtain

(
JarJ5
p+l-1
(b-BPp-i))’
1’
I >
1
x exp{-[(p + Z)b + l(p + I - 1)1x}
+5 - 113
(23)
6 p+l+l -p+Z+2
X(elb--G(P-i)lx _ l,‘, (20) where $(z) is the logarithmic derivative of the Gamma
where (i) is the binomial coefficient. Denoting the function and y is Euler’s constant (~0.577). Asymp-
upper bounds by /?I, the ratio of successive terms of totically,
the series BIE -I is , for large 1, less than unity provided
L(p-+Z)-in(l). (24)
that
a -&p-1)x Also, the relation [ 181
E’b-6(p- l)e .
(21)
ti(z + 1) = tie> + ;,
The conclusion is that for energies satisfying Eq. (2 1)
the series fila-’ is absolutely convergent and, by the leads to the useful equation
comparison theorem, so is the series in Eq. (16). The
bound in the inequality (2 1) can probably be substan- - 6(z) = n(z + 1) - L(z)
tially improved.
Recovery of the soft solution from Eq. (15), dis- =pb[&+&s]. (25)
cussed in the preceding section, suggests a system-
atic method for improving the soft solution, namely, When p = 2.7, l(p) = 1.795& and i’s for other
replacing only the first few modes by their exact ex- relevant arguments may be quickly calculated
pressions. This procedure makes mathematical sense from Eq. (25). It is also useful to note that the
when one is interested only in the high energy end of bremsstrahlung contribution to b is just /$,.
 J.L. betsky/ Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300 291

Now return to Eq. (15) and rewrite the multiple 7. Comparison with Monte Carlo calculations and
integral at the end of that equation as experimental data

[S
x

0
dz, e[b--6(P+l- 1)I71. . .
s Tk-I

0
dzk eV--s(p+l--k)ln

(26)
7.1. Monte Carlo - intensity us depth

Lipari and Stanev [9] have published the results of a

Monte Carlo calculation of the penetration of a power
The 6’s are slowly varying functions of their argu- spectrum of muons into standard earth. These authors
ment, so it is not a bad approximation to a replace parameterize their results 3 by noting that in the soft
each 6 by some average value 2. The expression (26) approximation the surface energy ~0 of a muon with
then becomes energy E(X) at depth x is just (in the present notation)
(b _ s)-k.$,(b--*_ 1 )k. (27) ebx E(X) + %(1 - e-“)I .
EO = (31)
[
Eq. (15) becomes A power law surface spectrum

dN
- =KcOp (32)
d%
then becomes at depth x (omitting the argument of E)

(28) dhf dN d.s,,

F&=dEgxdF
A further simplification is suggested by writ-
ing the argument of the first exponential on the = Ke-(P- 1)bx [E(X)
+ %(1 - eebX)] -‘. (33)
right of Eq. (28) as (p+ 1+ l)[b + {A(p + l)/
( p + 1 + 1 )}]. The second term in brackets is a slowly The authors parameterize their Monte-Carlo results
decreasing function of I that can also be replaced by by retaining the functional form of Eq. (33) but treat-
an average value 1. These modifications permit me ing a and b as “simple parameters without a direct
to sum the inverse energy series to obtain a result physical meaning”. The authors present results for
that is reminiscent of the soft approximation, namely 3 values of p: 3.7, 2.7 and 2.0. Their value for a
(dropping, for the moment, the “i” subscript) is fairly stable, about 0.25 TeV/km (km means km
water-equivalent). The b parameter varies from about
e--p(b+hx 1
ZP 0.383 km-’ ( p = 3.7) to 0.465 km-‘.
f(x7E)= [E + y(x)]P .Ip 2 + Y[E+ y(x)]e(b+l@' To compare the Monte Carlo calculation with the
present work, first observe that the power-law spec-
(29)
trum result is quickly derived from the proof of con-
where vergence in Section 5. The spectrum at depth t then
(b-&,e(b-6)x
follows from:
y(x)= A-e - 11.
b-6 dlv
_ = Ke-(P-l)(b+b
The arguments of the 6’s range from p to co; cor- ds
responding 6 values range from -0.303/.$, to zero. -P
a
-_,-(b+nh(,(b-% _ 1) , (34)
A value of -0.1 ~/IF, is a reasonable choice for 3. The b-6 I
choice can be justified by demonstrating that the final
results are insensitive to the exact value. where one should recognize that d&c/d&is just ecb+‘b.
1 obtain an estimate for 1 by averaging the first 10 Integrating Eq. (34) over E gives a result that is of
values of A/(p + I+ 1). The result is 0.41/&. Justifi-
cation for this choice again follows from a demonstra- 3 I am grateful to Professor Stanev for comments related to
tion of insensitivity to the precise value. Eq. (17) of Lipari and Stanev [9].
292 J.L. Uretsky/ Nucl. Instr. and Meth.
precisely the same form as Eq. (33) after the same in-
tegration over E. The dependence upon b + 1 cancels,
and the combination b - 3 replaces the b in Eq. (33).
A numerical comparison between the two results
follows from taking b to have its customary value
[19] of 0.36kn-’ (the parameter a, which does not
affect the t-dependence of the integrated spectrum is
about 0.26TeV/km at 1 TeV). One finds a value of
0.192 km-’ for /$, in Adair and Kasha [ 141. The result
is that b - 2 ranges from 0.389 to 0.4 10 as the spectral
index ranges from 3.7 to 2.0. The difference between
the intensities calculated from the two sets of parame-
ters are within a couple of per cent over a range of5 km
for an index of 3.7. The difference is less than 30%
over the same range at the (rather unphysical) index
of 2.0.
I conclude that the intensity-depth relationship
for an integrated muon spectrum is essentially
the same in the present approach and the Monte
Carlo approach. Neither one is very different from
the soft approximation (b = 0.36 km-’ compared
with b - 2 = 0.38 km-’ ), qualitatively or quan-
titatively, despite the authors’ of [9] contention
that their parameters are “without a direct physical
meaning”.
7.2. Energy distributions
The normalized energy distribution from the Monte
Carlo power spectrum (index 3.7) calculations are
shown in Fig. 4 of Ref. [9]. These authors report mean
energies (E,) of 225 and 325 GeV at respective depths
of 3 and 1Okm.
The mean energy for the spectrum of Eq. (34) is
just
-(b+Tqe(b-& _
(35)
1)
W = (p-2;cb&?je
with a similar expression for the Monte Carlo pa-
rameterization Eq. (33). The parameterization for the
Monte Carlo expressions gives respective mean en-
ergies of 248 and 356GeV at 3 and 1Okm depths.
These values are somewhat higher than the reported
means, but the parameterization implies that there is
monotic increase of mean energy with depth over its
entire range of validity.
in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300
Eq. (34), the result of the present analysis, does not
predict such a “hardening” at all depths. The mean
energy increases with depth down to a depth
x*=&ln(l+$$). (36)
The values for b and bt, of the preceding subsection
then predicts a “crossover depth” x* for hardening of
about 5.5 km. The prediction that there is any such
crossover depth is in clear disagreement with the
Monte Carlo parameterization, Eq. (33), if not with
the Monte Carlo results.
Eq. (34) gives mean energies of 228 GeV at 3 km
depth, and 2 11 GeV at 10 km depth. The 3 km predic-
tion agrees well with the reported Monte Carlo result
of 225 GeV. The 10 km predicted energy contrasts
with the reported Monte Carlo result of 325 GeV.
Fig. 3(a) shows the two distributions at 1Okm depth.
Each distribution is normalized to have a value of
unity when integrated over all energies and is, ac-
cordingly, a probability distribution. It is seen that
the distributions are, in fact, very close except for
energies less than about 10 GeV. Such low energy
muons have a range of only of the order of a me-
ter in standard rock and are not of interest in the
present study (But see Ref. [14], p. 338, et seq.). I
conclude that the Monte Carlo calculations and those
of this work give quite similar energy distributions
for muons of more than a few GeV down to at least
10 km depth.
The normalized energy distribution at 3 km depth
is plotted in Fig. 3, for comparison with the Monte
Carlo generated distributions in Ref. [9]. The present
prediction of the 1Okm normalized distribution
is nearly identical to the 3 km distribution (with-
in 2%).
7.3. Comparison with data
I have shown that the present analytical approach
to muon penetration into the earth and Monte Carlo
calculations give essentially identical predictions of
vertical intensity-depth variation for a muon spectral
index 3.7. My analysis goes further, however, be-
cause it predicts the normalization of the vertical in-
tensity on the basis of the known primary cosmic ray
 J.L. Vretsky/Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300 293

i-

I-

Fig. 3. Normalized energy distribution of muons at a depth of 3km for a power spectrum with index 3.7 as predicted by the present
analysis. The 1Okm normalized distribution differs by less than 2% at any energy and would be indistinguishable at the scale shown. (a)
Comparison of the energy distributions of muons at 1Okm depth as predicted from the Monte Carlo calculation reported by Lipari and
Stanev [9] and from the present work. Each distribution is normalized to unity when integrated over all energies. Note that the vertical
scale is linear, in contrast to that in Fig. 3.

flux, scaling assumptions, and some pion and kaon de- -fi,lp[p + (p + l)~C~ie-‘b+‘N&~]-‘}
cay properties. The results are contained in Eqs. (I),
cme2 s-l sr-’ GeV-’ (37)
(2), (4), and (29). Putting these together and remem-
bering the factor d&g/d& gives a result that may be with ~1 defined by
written as
dF(x, E) = 0.67e(‘-P)(h+‘)re;P
ds
The constants K, and KK are found to be K, = 1 and
x c Ki{[p + (p + l)yie-(b+“)XE1]-’
KK N 0.038. The index p is the index that appears
294 XL. Uretsky 1 Nucl. Instr. and Metk. in Pkyx Rex A 399 (1997) 285-300

0.a

Fig. 3. Continued

in Eq. (1 ), it is that of the primary spectrum. The Note that the dependence on the 2 parameter in
integrated flux is Eq. (39) cancels, just as it does in Eq. (33).
Eq. (39) is compared with experimental data in

1
1-P Fig. 4. Also shown are data points from a compila-
0.67 ,Cb-b _ 1)
F(x) = --k( tion by Crouch [20], a fit by the LVD Collaborators
P(P- 1) i (b-6)
[Z l] to their own data taken at a depth of 3 km. The
-1
l+P+l Q yi(e(b-zb - 1) Monte Carlo results for a pure power-law spectrum
xC&
i ii Pm I 1 with spectral index 3.7, normalized to the prediction
-1 of Eq. (39) at a depth of 3 km we, would not be dis-
-p,?J 1+Z-?JA biyj(e(bJZr - 1) tinguishable fi-om the illustrated Eq. (39) result. The
(i p - 1 (b - 3) I I Eq. (39) normalization predicts a flux that is about
cme2 s- ’ sr-’ . (39) 50% greater than that of the LVD parameterization.
 J.L. Uretsky / Nucl. Ins~. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300 295

Fig. 4. Comparison of muon intensity vs. depth as predicted by Eq. (39) with data points from the Crouch [20] compilation, a fit to data
by the LVD Collaboration [21]. A Monte Carlo pure power-law spectrum with spectral index 3.7, normalized to the prediction of Eq. (39)
at a depth of 3 km we would be indistinguishable from the illustrated prediction.

The data points at depths greater than 9 km in the
Crouch compilation are all from the Kolar gold fields.
When one includes a point at 10.06 km (not shown),
these data seem to be systematically lower than the
fluxes measured by LVD. The LVD collaboration adds
a further complicating factor by noting that for slant
depths less than 14 km, the LVD results cannot be di-
rectly compared with any other experiment that is not
physically located at Gran Sasso.
Ruddick [22] has collected a sample of 293 K muon
events that passed through a 2.5 m diameter spherical
region surrounding the center of the Soudan I detec-
tor during 172 live days of running time. He esti-
mates the specific gravity of the rock to be 2.95 and
the respective values of the a and b coefficients to be
0.26 TeV/km and 0.39 km-‘. The parameter 2 is about
-0.30 km-‘, as before. Fig. 5 shows the resulting pre-
dictions of Eq. (39) for the zenith angle distribution
of the Soudan I events compared with Ruddick’s data.
It may be helpful to note, for purpose of compari-
son with Fig. 4, that 1Okm slant depth corresponds
at Soudan to a cosine(zenith angle) of about 0.18.
I emphasize that the flux prediction is absolute. The
normalization is given by the the estimated primary
flux.
A Monte-Carlo prediction for the same data can be
obtained by using the parameterization of Ref. [9] for
a power spectrum with index 3.7, divided by the co-
sine of the zenith angle. The resulting curve would
be indistinguishable from the curve shown in Fig. 5.
296 J. L. Uretsky /Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300

Fig. 5. Zenith angle distribution of 293 K muon events that passed through a 2.5 m spherical region within the Soudan 1 detector during
172 days of ruuning time. The data were collected by Ruddick [22]. Also shown is prediction of Eq. (39), the normalization determined
by the cosmic-ray primary flux. A Monte Carlo index 3.7 power-law spectrum divided by the cosine of the zenith angle, normalized to
the vertical value would be indistinguishable from the curve shown.

Both curves somewhat overestimate the muon rate for constitute background to a search for high energy neu-
values of cosine( zenith angle) less than about 0.3. trinos from active galactic nuclei or other esoteric
I conclude that the intensity-depth relations from extra-terrestrial sources.
Eq. (39) are substantially the same as Monte Carlo pre- The collision probability for a TeV muon passing
dictions, except that Eq. (39) provides an absolute nor- through iron is, in the scaling approximation [ 141
malization for the flux. Both are in reasonable accord
with experiment, given experimental uncertainties.
4C.f1df= ;lO@1 - $1 -f)+(l
3-88 _f)2
[

+0.072(1-f+if2)1n(y)
8. High energy neutrinos, an application

Eq. (37) provides means for estimating the rate at
large zenith angles for discrete large energy losses
(“catastrophic” events) in the Soudan II detector by
cosmic-ray muons having energies in the TeV range.
This estimate is of interest because such events would
+0.0087( f + 0.007 1)-2 d f cm2/g (40)
I
$(f)df in Eq. (40) is the probability that a muon
undergoes a collision in which it loses fractional en-
ergy between f and f + df from brehmsstrahlung,
 J.L. Uretsky/ Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300 297

LOSS PROBABILITY vs. LOSS

0.8 I I I I I I I

0 FOR MUONS OF DESIGNATED ENERGY

‘_
-_
+.. -..
‘\ -..
\. ‘.
. . .
x -_

---~‘=--~--m.-,?___.____
ii -- --
I I 1 I I 1 I
OO 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
LOSS IN TeV
.- 5 TeV
-^ 20TeV
- 45 TeV
-- 8OTeV
- 125TeV
Fig. 6. Probability that a muon having the designated energy will lose energy in excess of the designated loss value (TeV) when traversing
the Soudan II detector.

pair production or a nuclear collision as it passes
through iron. Multiplication of 4( f ) by the mean den-
sity p of the detector, about 1.6 g/cm3, then gives the
inverse mean free path for a collision in the detector
with fractional energy loss between f and f + df.
The probability that a muon with energy in the TeV
range will deposit at least a fraction fo of its en-
ergy while traversing length L of detector (500 cm for
Soudan II) is then simply
@Gfo)=l -exp [-,{$(f)df].
Fig. 6 shows probabilities for muons of several des-
ignated energies to lose energy greater than “loss” TeV
in traversing the Soudan II detector.
The probability per unit length of detector track for
cosmic ray muons to undergo collisions with fractional
energy loss f is obtained by folding Eq. (37) with
Eq. (40). This probability is approximately constant
throughout the volume of the detector. Multiplying by
the detector length and the exposure then gives the
expected number of such events.
The Soudan II detector is approximately a rectan-
(41)
gular parallelepiped having sides measuring (in m)
298 J.L. Uretsky/Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Rex A 399 (1997) 285-300

I- --_&----------!

--- I I I A’\ &_

J l
\\_ l*
0.1
___---
__---__ _-.
-.- I
\
- I I
\
_-.--_---__-. ---_- __. -_._A

O.O’J.35 0.3 1 0.27 0.23 0.19 1

0.15

c4miMoftithAa~e
- 1oGevL4ws
l *. 40 Gev1oss
- 70 GeVloss
- 1ooGevloss

Fig. 7. Differential zenith angle distribution for energy deposition of the indicated value by muons traversing the Soudan II detector at
large zenith angles in 372 days running time.

5 x 8 and 5 x 14. DeMuth and Goodman4 have done
a Monte Carlo study of the effective exposure area of
the detector for horizontal incoming muons. Their area
is about 8.24 x lo5 cm2, their estimated efficiency is
0.77, and their solid-angle binning
d4 d cos( 0) = 2~ x 0.005.
The total exposure over a 372 day time span was then
6.41 x 1012 cm* ssr.
Figure 7 shows the prediction for the differential
and cumulative (in energy loss) distributions of catas-
trophic events during the 372 day running time at
Soudan II.
4 Private communication
9. Conclusions and suggestions for further work
I have shown that the one-dimensional diffusion
equation for muon propagation through the earth,
Eq. (5), in the scaling approximation with constant
a and b coefficients, can be solved by a convergent
series in inverse powers of the energy whenever the
flux at the surface can be expressed by such a series.
The coefficients in the expansion are reminiscent of
an n-step random walk, where n is the nth term in the
expansion.
I compare the results with published Monte Carlo
calculations and data. The dependence of intensity
upon depth is nearly identical to the Monte Carlo
result for realistic spectral index (3.7), less so for an
 J.L. Uretsky /Nucl. Ins@. and Meth. in Phys. Res. A 399 (1997) 285-300 299

unrealistically flat index (2.0). The mean muon en-
ergy at depth is the same for both calculations at
3 km depth, and the energy spectra at that depth look
very similar. The predicted spectra become different
at deeper depths. Monte Carlo predicts a monotoni-
cally increasing mean energy with depth; the present
calculation predicts a decreasing mean energy below
about 5.5 km. The differences are not profound, how-
ever, because the spectra are in fact quite flat (on a
linear plot).
The present calculation predicts the absolute muon
intensity as a function of depth. The predicted fluxes
accord with experimental data down to about 4 i km
depth, below that depth they are about 50% higher than
a data fit from the LVD collaboration (which, we are
warned, should not be compared with data not taken
at Gran Sasso). A power spectrum with index 3.7,
normalized to the present prediction at 3 km (using
either the present formalism or Monte Carlo), falls off
with depth a bit faster than either the present prediction
or the LVD fit.
Comparison with data from Soudan I gives a some-
what similar result. The predictions accord well with
data down to a slant depth of about 6 km, below that
to the definitions of the 3 and 1 parameters might
be improved. In particular, one might seek a better
way to sum the series in powers in inverse energy.
An approach should be found for restoring, at least
partially, the suppressed energy dependence of the b
parameter. And the problem of calculating
two-dimensional effects also presents an interesting
challenge.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Maury Goodman for motivating
this work, to Maury, Tom Fields and Keith Ruddick
and David DeMuth for helpful comments, and to Keith
for supplying his Soudan I dataset.
Appendix
The most general surface spectrum to which the
present analysis is applicable can be expressed as a
convergent series in inverse powers of the energy,
cc

depth the predictions appear to be about 50% high. j-(0, E) = c C/&-P--I. (A.11
I=0
A power spectrum of 3.7, normalized to the vertical
intensity, would be indistinguishable from the present The surface condition on the alpha coefficients now
predictions over the range of angles at which measure- becomes a,(O) = q.
ments were made. Define a new coefficient /?l(x) by
I have used the formalism developed in this paper
to estimate the annual rate of horizontal cosmic ray CII= e -[(P+~)b+r.(P+l-l)lx~~(x). (A.2)
muons with large energy losses.

x
All of the numerical calculations reported in this The PI coefficients satisfy the recursive condition:

J
paper were performed on a personal computer using
either a spreadsheet (Quattro Pro) or Mathcad 6.0. PI+1 = cl+1 - 4P + 0 du e[b-s(P+‘)l”/?,(u) (A.3)
0
Computation times (as when changing parameters)
were never more than a few seconds. with the PI vanishing for negative 1 and PO= co.
The results of the present investigation suggest an The a~ can be bounded, just as in Section 5 with the
improved parameterization of Monte Carlo results result that
over that contained in Ref. [9]. I assume that the
authors of Ref. [9] constrained themselves to a two-
parameter fit to their data in order to compare their
results with the “soft” analytic approximation. The
present results suggest that an improved fit should be (A.4)
possible by introducing a parameter equivalent to the
> of Section 6. where b stands for b - 6( p - 1).
It should be possible to extend the work reported in The next steps are to put the bound Eq. (A.4) into
this paper in several directions. The estimates leading the expansion Eq. (A.l), and exchange the k and 1
300 J.L. Uretskyl Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Rex A 399 (1997) 285-300

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