Observation of seasonal variation of atmospheric multiple-muon events in the NOvA Near Detector

Abstract

Using two years of data from the NOvA Near Detector at Fermilab, we report a seasonal variation of cosmic ray induced multiple-muon $(\rm{N}_μ ≥ 2)$ event rates which has an opposite phase to the seasonal variation in the atmospheric temperature. The strength of the seasonal multiple-muon variation is shown to increase as a function of the muon multiplicity. However, no significant dependence of the strength of the seasonal variation of the multiple-muon variation is seen as a function of the muon zenith angle, or the spatial or angular separation between the correlated muons.