Rayos Cósmicos: �La Sublime utilidad de la �ciencia “inútil”

Luis A. Núñez

Escuela de Física

Universidad Industrial de Santander

Bucaramanga

Agosto 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6hdgSqAcOY

Me he robado el título

y lo ejemplifico con los rayos cósmicos

Hoy mas que nunca nuestro futuro está en manos de la ciencia inútil

Pero ya alguien lo había dicho casi igual

https://www.ias.edu/sites/default/files/library/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN0Aps_iJdw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbuaaXjQSkw

Cosmic rays in a nutshell

https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/physics-around-you/understanding-surroundings/cosmic-rays

Incident particle

http://revista.iaa.es/content/los-rayos-cósmicos-una-nueva-ventana-al-universo

Los rayos cósmicos: una nueva ventana al universo

A. Ferriz Mas, Universidad de Vigo e IAA/CSIC y J. A. Garzón-Heydt, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

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Geomagnetic reconnection

http://sci.esa.int/cluster/51744-magnetic-reconnection-in-earth-s-magnetosphere/

Coronal Mass Ejection

http://sci.esa.int/solar-system/59399-tracking-a-solar-eruption-through-the-solar-system/

The LAGO Collaboration

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The LAGO Collaboration

LAGO is an Auger Observatory spinoff collaboration with 83 members from 25 institutions at 10 LA countries & Spain

Scientific goals:

• Astroparticles up to the Cosmic Ray knee
• Study transient and long term Space Weather phenomena trough Solar modulation of Cosmic Rays
• Measurements of background radiation at ground level
• Applications of Cosmic Rays (Muography/Moisture)

Academic goals:

• Train latin-american students in HEP and Astroparticle techniques
• Build a Latin-American network of Astroparticle researchers

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• Instrumentation
• Simulation framework
• Training in AstroParticle

Nuevo detector: sWCD (s como en “smart”)

• Detector Cherenkov en agua:
• Eficiente, económico, confiable
• Sensibilidad a partículas cargadas y fotones (principalmente por γ → e⁺e^-)
• Tanques plásticos de agua
• 8” PMT + Placa digitalizadora LAGO
• FPGA + Raspberry Pi: control, telemetria, adquisición de datos y pre-análisis de los datos en el detector
• Comunicación WiFi, Celular y Satelital
• Consumo < 10 W
• Medición de variables atmosféricas

Ambientes de simulación LAGO-INDICA

MiLAB y la computación contínua

El observatorio de rayos cósmicos más grande del mundo

Objetivo: Estudiar Rayos Cósmicos de muy alta energía ~10²⁰ eV

Area de detección: 3000 Km²

Detección híbrida:

1660 Detectores de Superficie

27 Telescopios de Fluorescencia

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Observatorio Pierre Auger

El Observatorio Pierre Auger

432 investigadores

87 Instituciones

17 Países

Auger and LAGO Observatories significant influence in Colombian Astroparticle Physics

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23

2011 first WCD

2012

Chacaltaya GRB Analysis

2015

LAGO Space Weather

Auger Member

Xavier Bertou

Hernán Asorey

Roberto Mussa

CosmoGeophysics

Piera Ghia

Outreach

Long/short term scaler analysis

ELVES & lighting analysis

Volcano Muon Tomography

Precision agriculture with cosmic rays

Ronald Cintra Shellard

P. Teixeira et al International Workshop on Cosmic-Ray Muography (Muography2021)

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13 volcanoes analysed

Complies: Cerro Machín

• At the observational level, is the volcano base width less than 1,500 m?
• Are there tentative observation points where the surrounding topography does not affect the target?
• Are the sites accessible and secure?

Asorey, H., Nunez, L. A., Sanabria-Gomez, J. D., Sarmiento-Cano, C., Sierra-Porta, D., Suarez-Duran, M., ... & Vesga-Ramírez, A. (2017). Muon Tomography sites for Colombia volcanoes. arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.09884.

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Vesga-Ramírez, A.; Sierra-Porta, D.; Pena-Rodriguez, J.; Sanabria-Gomez, J. D.; Valencia-Otero, M.; Sarmiento-Cano, C.; Suarez-Duran, M.; Asorey, H.; Nunez, L. A.

(2017). Muon Tomography sites for Colombia volcanoes. arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.09884.

MuTe: The Muon Telescope

900 pixels 4cm x 4cm

30x30 bars:

120cm x 4cm x 2cm

H. Asorey, R. Calderón-Ardila, C. R. Carvajal-Bohorquez, S. Hernández-Barajas, L. Martínez- Ramírez, A. Jaimes-Motta, F. León-Carreño, J. Peña-Rodríguez, J. Pisco-Guavabe, J.D. Sanabria- Gómez, M. Suárez-Durán, A. Vásquez-Ramírez, K. Forero-Gutiérrez, J. Salamanca-Coy, L. A. Núñez and D. Sierra-Porta (2018). Astroparticle projects at the Eastern Colombia region: facilities and instrumentation. Scientia et technica, 23(3), 392-397.

Wind stress response

Temperature response

Instrument response

To climate variables

Peña-Rodríguez, J., Pisco-Guabave, J., Sierra-Porta, D., Suárez-Durán, M., Arenas-Flórez, M., Pérez-Archila, L. M., ... & Núñez, L. A. (2020). Design and construction of MuTe: a hybrid Muon Telescope to study Colombian Volcanoes. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.09364.

MuTe electronics

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Peña-Rodríguez, J., Pisco-Guabave, J., Sierra-Porta, D., Suárez-Durán, M., Arenas-Flórez, M., Pérez-Archila, L. M., ... & Núñez, L. A. (2020). Design and construction of MuTe: a hybrid Muon Telescope to study Colombian Volcanoes. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.09364.

Geant4 Simulations

Vásquez-Ramírez, A., Suárez-Durán, M., Jaimes-Motta, A., Calderón-Ardila, R., Peña-Rodríguez, J., Sánchez-Villafrades, J., ... & Núñez, L. A. (2019). Simulated Response of MuTe, a Hybrid Muon Telescope. arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.10081.

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Observation points at Cerro Machín

Simulated flux at observation points

Vesga-Ramírez, A.; Sanabria-Gomez, J. D.; Sierra-Porta, D.; Arana-Salinas; L.;  Asorey, H.; Kudryavtsev, V. A.; Calderon-Ardila, R.; Nunez, L. A. Simulated Annealing for Volcano Muography (2020) to appear

Portable Hodoscope with local electronics

H. Asorey,  R. Calderón-Ardila, K. Forero-Gutiérrez, L.A. Nuñez, J. Peña-Rodríguez, J. Salamanca- Coy, D. Sanabria-Gómez, J. Sánchez-Villafrades and D. Sierra-Porta (2018). miniMuTe: A muon telescope prototype for studying volcanic structures with cosmic ray flux. Scientia et technica, 23(3), 386-391.

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Machín

Etna

Puy Dome

Vesuvius

Peña-Rodríguez, J. et al (2024). MUYSC: an end-to-end muography simulation toolbox. Geophysical J. International, 237(1), 540-556..

Parametric muon tomography

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Asorey, H., et al (2017). Astroparticle Techniques: Colombia active volcano candidates for Muon Telescope observation sites. Rev. Mex. Astron. Astrof. Ser. Conf. 49, 54, arXiv:1704.04967. Muon telescope (mute): A first study using geant4. In Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica Conference Series 49, 144

2017 First Simulations�Sites & Instrument

Moss, H., et al (2018). Muon tomography for the cerro machın volcano. Technical report, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Sheffield.

2018 HPC

MUSIC�Site Simulations

Asorey et al (2018). miniMuTe: A muon telescope prototype for studying volcanic structures with cosmic ray flux. Scientia et technica, 23(3), 386-391.

2018 First hardware implementation

Vásquez-Ramírez, A.et al, (2020). Simulated response of MuTe, a hybrid Muon Telescope. J. Instrumentation, 15(08), P08004.

2020 Full instrument simulation

Peña-Rodríguez, J. et al (2020). Design and construction of MuTe: a hybrid muon telescope to study colombian volcanoes. J. Instrumentation, 15(09), P09006.

2020 Full Hardware implementation MuTE 1.0

Vesga-Ramírez, A. et al (2020). Muon Tomography sites for Colombian volcanoes. ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS, 63(6).

2020 Full Colombia Muography site simulations

Vesga-Ramírez, A., et al (2021). Simulated annealing for volcano muography. Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 109, 103248.

2021 optimization algorithm applied to Muography

Grisales-Casadiegos, et al. (2022). Impact of Global Data Assimilation System atmospheric models on astroparticle showers. Canadian Journal of Physics, 100(3), 152-157.

2022 modelling atmospheric

Sarmiento-Cano, C. et al (2022). The ARTI framework: cosmic rays atmospheric background simulations. The European Physical Journal C, 82(11), 1019.

2022 ARTI Full (first principle) simulation framework

Peña-Rodríguez, J. et al (2023). Characterization and On-Field Performance of the MuTe Silicon Photomultipliers. Instruments, 7(1), 7.

2023 Component on field performance

Peña-Rodríguez, J. et al (2024). MUYSC: an end-to-end muography simulation toolbox. Geophysical J. International, 237(1), 540-556..

2024 Full phenomenological simulation framework

MuTe 2.0

Muon Telescope (MuTe) evolution

Asorey, H., et al (2018). Preliminary results from the latin american giant observatory space weather simulation chain. Space Weather, 16(5), 461-475.

2018 First simulation chain implementation

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MuTe 2.0

• 15 x 15 scintillator array for a 225-pixel panel
• 84 possible angular trajectories.
• 32 mrad angular resolution

MuTe 2.0

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Muography for oil & gas insdustry

Martínez-Rivero, Rafael Armando, et al. "Muon Imaging of Hydrotreatment Reactors." arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.15103 (2025).

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Cosmos UK

https://cosmos.ceh.ac.uk/

Scintillating thermal neutron detectors for cosmic ray soil moisture monitoring

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Stowell, P. et al (2021). J. of Instrumentation, 16, P11039.

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URANOS

Ultra Rapid Adaptable Neutron-Only Simulation

(Köhli, M., et al (2023). Geoscientific Model Development, 16, 449)

• simulates cosmogenic neutron radiation near the Earth’s surface
• studies environmental response to soil water content, snow, or biomass.
• uses the analytical cosmic ray neutron spectrum (Sato, T., & Niita, K. (2006). Radiation research, 166, 544)

URANUS: Simulations

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Cosmic neutron energy spectrum.

• Histograms correspond to measurements Goldhagen, P., et al (2002). Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics, 476, 42.
• Black line c incoming neutron spectrum Köhli, M., et al. (2015) Water Resources Research, 51, 5772.
• Dashed lines correspond to simulations Sato, T., & Niita, K. (2006). Radiation research, 166, 544).

CORSIKA: No way

Incoming neutron energy spectra for each location.

N-ARTI

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Neutron detection using a WCD & NaCl

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Sidelnik, I., et al (2020). Nuclear Instruments and Methods, 955, 163172.

Betancourt, J., et al. "Enhanced water Cherenkov detector for soil moisture detection." arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.08562 (2025).

MuNRA: Muon Neutron Radiation

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It bleeds

EL-BONGÓ physics

¿Quiénes somos y dónde estamos?

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Foster the digital transformation of Higher Education by promoting virtual research communities in Latin America

• Learning-by-doing research in digital communities using MiLAB professional digital platform and open methodologies
• Developing do-it-yourself digital fabrication skills for building scientific instruments in FABLab environments
• Creating a flexible hybrid Bologna Master Program based on mini-training modules with institutional validation through a blockchain infrastructure
• Building an Open Science Collaborative Hub/Science Gateway designed to cater not just to the academic and research community but also to be inclusive of the broader society, encouraging lifelong learning and public engagement with science and education.
• Digital Infrastructure: Digital platforms for e-learning, research databases, and virtual laboratories.
• Open-Access Educational Resources: A repository of open-access materials
• Collaboration and Networking Platforms for students, educators, researchers, and industry professionals across Latin America and beyond.
• Transferring the experiences and best practices from LA-CoNGA Physics in Internationalization, Digital Education and Open Science
• Hybrid Bologna master training program
• Academic Life Workshops, Seminars, Mentorships/Internships
• Global community engaged with the Latin American Diaspora

EL-BONGO Physics: E-Latin America Digital huB for OpeN Growing cOmmunities in physics

The concept: Learning by doing research

Research based learning, integrates research activities into the core of the learning process

Learning by doing implies collaborative projects, real-world problem-solving, large collaboration culture, the use of open data and digital fabrication laboratories (FABLab)

Do-it-by-yourself (DIY) completes the learning environment providing the capabilities to build and repair scientific sensors/equipments

Research learning communities

Seismology

High Energy Physics

Space Weather Astronomy

AI-HPC Tools

Inter Community

Open Science Hub

• Courses
• Workshops
• Data
• Codes
• Publications
• Chats
• Visualizations

• Courses
• Workshops
• Data
• Codes
• Publications
• Chats
• Visualizations

• Courses
• Workshops
• Data
• Codes
• Publications
• Chats
• Visualizations

• Courses
• Workshops
• Data
• Codes
• Publications
• Chats
• Visualizations

EL-BONGO Physics Research-Learning communities

UES(SV), UIS(CO), USB(VE), USC(GT), UNMSM(PE)

USC(GT), UIS(CO), UCV(VE), USFQ(EC), UPC(FR), UNMSM (PE)

USal(ES), UIS, ULyon, UFG(SV), UNMSM(PE), UP(PA)

UNAH (HN), USC(GT), UPC(FR), UPS(FR), USFQ(EC), UAN(CO)

EL-BONGÓ physics as a matrix-structured syllabus

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In research labs (EU)

Community Scientific Instrumentation

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Data Science

Industries/startups LA

advanced communtiy course 2

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advanced community course 1

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Machine learning

&

Artificial Intelligence

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Hackathons

Citizen science

OR

OR

and/or

and/or

and/or

medical physics

and/or

Final reporting + Network School

Pre-internship

break

break

+

+

In research labs (LA)

http://laconga.redclara.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/preguntas-frecuentes-LACoNGA.pdf

Community course:

SpaceWeather, GeoSciences, HPC-AI, HEP

….

and/or

Peña-Rodríguez, J., & Núñez, L. A. (2022). LA-CoNGA physics: an Open Science Collaboration in Advanced Physics between Latin-America and Europe. arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.02256.

Gracias

Cosmic-ray and gamma-ray experiments

https://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/hfm/CosmicRay/CosmicRaySites.html#space

Tour por el observatorio Pierre Auger

No computer is safe

Sarmiento-Cano, C., et al. (2022). The ARTI framework: cosmic rays atmospheric background simulations. The European Physical Journal C, 82(11), 1019.

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K. Morishima et al International Workshop on Cosmic-Ray Muography (Muography2021)

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K. Morishima et al International Workshop on Cosmic-Ray Muography (Muography2021)

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https://physicsworld.com/a/life-beyond-the-nobel-laureates-tend-to-be-serial-risk-takers/

Life beyond the Nobel: laureates tend to be serial risk-takers

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Dezső Varga et al International Workshop on Cosmic-Ray Muography (Muography2021)

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Dezső Varga et al International Workshop on Cosmic-Ray Muography (Muography2021)

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Sarmiento-Cano, C., Suárez-Durán, M., Calderón-Ardila, R., Vásquez-Ramírez, A., Jaimes-Motta, A., Núñez, L. A., ... & LAGO Collaboration. (2022). The ARTI framework: cosmic rays atmospheric background simulations. The European Physical Journal C, 82(11), 1019.

Y la orografía…

ARTI Simulation framework

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Asorey, H., Suárez-Durán, M., & Mayo-García, R. (2023). ACORDE: A new application for estimating the dose absorbed by passengers and crews in commercial flights. Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 196, 110752.

Sarmiento-Cano, & LAGO Collaboration. (2022). The ARTI framework: cosmic rays atmospheric background simulations. The European Physical Journal C, 82(11), 1019.

Sidelnik, I.,& LAGO Collaboration. (2023). The capability of water Cherenkov detectors arrays of the LAGO project to detect Gamma-Ray Burst and high energy astrophysics sources. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research 1056, 168576.

Sarmiento-Cano, & LAGO Collaboration.. (2024). Cosmogenic neutrons and soil moisture (in preparation).

Otiniano, L.,& LAGO Collaboration. (2023). Measurement of the muon lifetime and the Michel spectrum in the LAGO water Cherenkov detectors as a tool to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research 1056, 168567.

Vesga-Ramírez, A., et al (2020). Muon Tomography sites for Colombian volcanoes. ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS, 63(6).

13 volcanoes analysed

Only one complies Cerro Machín

¿cuál es el problema matemático?

El paso de los muones, que tienen un alto poder de penetración y la pérdida de energía a su paso por distintos materiales puede modelarse mediante la siguiente ecuación diferencial

https://pdg.lbl.gov/2016/AtomicNuclearProperties/adndt.pdf

¡ Los coeficientes de la ecuación dependen de la energía !

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• Hybrid detector, a scintillator hodoscope and a Water Cherenkov Detector: hodoscope for particle tracking and WCD for background noise filtering.
• Identification and classification of noise sources: backward-traveling particles, low-momentum muons, electromagnetic components from extensive air showers, and multiple particle events.
• Time-of-Flight (138 picoseconds) System for Direction and Energy Determination: MuTe determines the arrival direction, classify the momentum, and measures energy loss of the detected particles.

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• Panel contains 60 scintillator a 900-pixel array reconstructing 3481 possible trajectories.
• Angular Resolution: 32mrad Comparable to TOMUVOL (8.7mrad) (Cârloganu, C., et al. (2013). Geoscientific Instrum, 2, 55), MU-RAY (15mrad) (Ambrosino, F., et al (2014). J. of Instrum, 9, C02029.), MURAVES (8mrad) (Cimmino, L., et al (2017). Ann. of Geophysics, 60), DIAPHANE (100mrad) (Lesparre, N., et al. (2012) Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems, 1, 33).
• Time-of-Flight System:Resolution: 138ps, better than MURAVES (400 ps) and DIAPHANE (1ns).

MuTe 1.0 in a nutshell

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Commercial electronics to speed up the instrument

CAEN FERS-5202 64 channels Front-End Readout System for large arrays of detectors. �Includes Front End electronics, A/D converters, trigger logic, synchronization, local memory and readout interface.

Lead shield design

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Rayos Cósmicos y agricultura de precisión