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Explanation of the seasonal variation of cosmic multiple muon events observed with the NOvA Near Detector

S. Abubakar12, M. A. Acero2, B. Acharya33, P. Adamson13, N. Anfimov28, A. Antoshkin28, E. Arrieta-Diaz29, L. Asquith42, A. Aurisano7 et al. (NOvA Collaboration)

A. Aurisano7, A. Back21,26, N. Balashov28, P. Baldi27, B. A. Bambah18, E. F. Bannister42, A. Barros2, J. Barrow32, A. Bat3,12, T. J. C. Bezerra42, V. Bhatnagar36, B. Bhuyan16, J. Bian27,32, A. C. Booth38,42, R. Bowles21, B. Brahma19, C. Bromberg30, N. Buchanan9, A. Butkevich23, T. J. Carroll44,50, E. Catano-Mur49, J. P. Cesar44, S. Chaudhary16, R. Chirco20, S. Choate25, B. C. Choudhary11, O. T. K. Chow38, A. Christensen9, M. F. Cicala46, T. E. Coan41, T. Contreras13, A. Cooleybeck50, D. Coveyou47, L. Cremonesi38, G. S. Davies33, P. F. Derwent13, Z. Djurcic1, K. Dobbs17, D. Dueñas Tonguino14,7, E. C. Dukes47, A. Dye33,48, R. Ehrlich47, E. Ewart21, P. Filip24, M. J. Frank39, H. R. Gallagher45, A. Giri19, R. A. Gomes15, M. C. Goodman1, R. Group47, E. Guan1, A. Habig31, F. Hakl22, J. Hartnell42, R. Hatcher13, J. M. Hays38, M. He17, K. Heller32, V. Hewes7, A. Himmel13, T. Horoho47, X. Huang33, A. Ivanova28, I. Kakorin28, A. Kalitkina28, D. M. Kaplan20, A. Khanam43, B. Kirezli12, J. Kleykamp33, O. Klimov28, L. W. Koerner17, L. Kolupaeva28, R. Kralik42, A. Kumar36, C. D. Kuruppu40, V. Kus10, T. Lackey13,21, K. Lang44, J. Lesmeister17, A. Lister50, J. A. Lock42, S. Magill1, W. A. Mann45, M. T. Manoharan8, M. Manrique Plata21, M. L. Marshak32, M. Martinez-Casales13,26, V. Matveev23, A. Medhi16, B. Mehta36, M. D. Messier21, H. Meyer48, T. Miao13, V. Mikola46, S. R. Mishra40, R. Mohanta18, A. Moren31, A. Morozova28, W. Mu13, L. Mualem5, M. Muether48, C. Murthy44, D. Myers44, J. Nachtman25, D. Naples37, J. K. Nelson49, O. Neogi25, R. Nichol46, E. Niner13, A. Norman13, A. Norrick13, H. Oh7, A. Olshevskiy28, T. Olson17, A. Pal35, J. Paley13, L. Panda35, R. B. Patterson5, G. Pawloski32, R. Petti40, L. R. Prais33,7, A. Rafique1, V. Raj5, M. Rajaoalisoa7, B. Ramson13, B. Rebel50, C. Reynolds38, E. Robles27, P. Roy48, O. Samoylov28, M. C. Sanchez14,26, S. Sánchez Falero26, P. Shanahan13, P. Sharma36, A. Sheshukov28, A. Shmakov27, W. Shorrock42, S. Shukla4, I. Singh11, P. Singh38, V. Singh4, S. Singh Chhibra38, A. Smith32, J. Smolik10, P. Snopok20, N. Solomey48, A. Sousa7, K. Soustruznik6, M. Strait13,32, C. Sullivan45, L. Suter13, A. Sutton14,26, K. Sutton5, S. K. Swain35, A. Sztuc46, N. Talukdar40, P. Tas6, T. Thakore7, J. Thomas46, E. Tiras12,26, M. Titus8, Y. Torun20, D. Tran17, J. Trokan-Tenorio49, J. Urheim21, B. Utt32, P. Vahle49, Z. Vallari34, K. J. Vockerodt38,34, A. V. Waldron38, M. Wallbank7,13, B. Wang41,25, C. Weber32, M. Wetstein26, D. Whittington43, D. A. Wickremasinghe13, J. Wolcott45, S. Wu32, W. Wu37, Y. Xiao27, B. Yaeggy7, A. Yahaya48, A. Yankelevich27, K. Yonehara13, S. Zadorozhnyy23, J. Zalesak24, and R. Zwaska13 (NOvA Collaboration)

  • 1Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 2Universidad del Atlantico, Carrera 30 No. 8-49, Puerto Colombia, Atlantico, Colombia
  • 3Bandirma Onyedi Eylül University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Engineering Sciences Department, 10200, Bandirma, Bal𝚤kesir, Turkey
  • 4Department of Physics, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221 005, India
  • 5California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
  • 6Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Prague, Czech Republic
  • 7Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA
  • 8Department of Physics, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi 682 022, India
  • 9Department of Physics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1875, USA
  • 10Czech Technical University in Prague, Brehova 7, 115 19 Prague 1, Czech Republic
  • 11Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi 110007, India
  • 12Department of Physics, Erciyes University, Kayseri 38030, Turkey
  • 13Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
  • 14Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA
  • 15Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, 74690-900, Brazil
  • 16Department of Physics, IIT Guwahati, Guwahati, 781 039, India
  • 17Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA
  • 18School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500 046, India
  • 19Department of Physics, IIT Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 502 205, India
  • 20Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Illinois 60616, USA
  • 21Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
  • 22Institute of Computer Science, The Czech Academy of Sciences, 182 07 Prague, Czech Republic
  • 23Institute for Nuclear Research of Russia, Academy of Sciences 7a, 60th October Anniversary prospect, Moscow 117312, Russia
  • 24Institute of Physics, The Czech Academy of Sciences, 182 21 Prague, Czech Republic
  • 25Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA
  • 26Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
  • 27Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA
  • 28Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Moscow region 141980, Russia
  • 29Universidad del Magdalena, Carrera 32 No 22-08 Santa Marta, Colombia
  • 30Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
  • 31Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, Minnesota 55812, USA
  • 32School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
  • 33University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi 38677, USA
  • 34Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
  • 35National Institute of Science Education and Research, An OCC of Homi Bhabha National Institute, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
  • 36Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 160 014, India
  • 37Department of Physics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
  • 38Particle Physics Research Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
  • 39Department of Physics, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama 36688, USA
  • 40Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA
  • 41Department of Physics, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA
  • 42Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, United Kingdom
  • 43Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse New York 13210, USA
  • 44Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
  • 45Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
  • 46Physics and Astronomy Department, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
  • 47Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA
  • 48Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Physics, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas 67260, USA
  • 49Department of Physics, William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23187, USA
  • 50Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 012001 – Published 7 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6djf-6bn5

Abstract

The flux of cosmic ray muons at the Earth’s surface exhibits seasonal variations due to changes in the temperature of the atmosphere affecting the production and decay of mesons in the upper atmosphere. Using 1473 live days of data collected by the NuMI Off-axis νe Appearance (NOvA) Near Detector during 2018–2022, we studied the seasonal pattern in the multiple-muon event rate. The data confirm an anticorrelation between the multiple-muon event rate and effective atmospheric temperature, consistent across all the years of data. Previous analyses from MINOS and NOvA saw a similar anticorrelation but did not include an explanation. We find that this anticorrelation is driven by altitude–geometry effects as the average muon production height changes with the season. This has been studied with a CORSIKA cosmic ray simulation package by varying atmospheric parameters, and provides an explanation to a longstanding discrepancy between the seasonal phases of single and multiple-muon events.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 012001– Published 7 January, 2026
  • Received 6 August 2025
  • Accepted 1 December 2025
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