VT College of Science presents Breakthrough - A Student Research Magazine Vol. 1 No. 1 | Page 8

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BREAKTHROUGH MAGAZINE | 2014

Comments from

Dr. Camillo Mariani

“I met Ron during the 2013 spring semester

at Virginia Tech when he enrolled in the first part of

the Introduction to quantum mechanics course I was teaching. As a student, Ron impressed me with
his commitment and drive to excel in the class. Ron approached me to learn what kind of research I
was conducting and after several discussions I was very happy when Ron indicated he would like to
participate in my research activities because it was very clear that he was very capable, curious, eager,
and a dedicated budding scientist.

Ron worked with my research group during the 2013 Spring semester and in the summer 2013.

He did an excellent job developing and fully executing the tasks and goals we established. Ron developed the calibration software for a muon detector that we had assembled in the physics department. The calibration project is part of
an effort by the Center of Neutrino Physics as the detector is deployed in our underground facility at the Kimballton Underground
Research Facility (KURF) nearby in Giles County and the calibration was a fundamental part that helped understand the muon flux
underground, crucial for all experiments, both ours and for external collaborators as well. Ron showed excellent capabilities of working
alone and also was a great team player learning and working with my postdoctoral associate Dr. L. Kalousis.

Ron has been very active and showed interest in learning new things and investigating new experimental techniques. As

Kalousis said “Ron was rather quick to digest the detector concept and functionality while he made several contributions on the data
analysis software. The calibration algorithm that he developed is an integral part of the analysis chain and played a pivotal role in obtaining the final results.”

I have been observing Ron’s dedication during his entire research time with my group. I was impressed by his devotion to the

project and his leadership. I have been working with undergraduate students for the last six years and I would say Ron is one of the
most capable. At the beginning of the fall semester 2013 Ron presented his analysis on the calibration of our muon detector prototype
in front of the physics department as part of the research seminar I organize for the Center of Neutrino Physics. He did a great job
handling and answering questions. A rare accomplishment for a student that has just started his research work.”

Muon Telescope:
Calibration, Performance, and Absolute
Muon Flux Measurements at the
Kimballton Underground Research Facility
Ron Pelkey
This paper gives a brief introduction to the topic of neutrinos, muons, the Kimballton mine, the Mega Mini muon detector, and the software developed to analyze data collected at Kimballton. Our goal was to create the first reliable measurements of the rate of muons
throughout the Kimballton mine. We created the analysis software to determine the muon flux at Kimballton, and in the future to test
our angular distribution against the Monte Carlo simulation.
1. A Brief Introduction to Neutrinos and Muons
The existence of the neutrino was postulated in the 1930’s by Wolfgang Pauli as a way to conserve the energy in the beta decay. The
beta decay is a process in which the nucleus of an atom emits either a positron on an electron in order to obtain the optimal ratio of
protons and neutrons. The issue with this process is the experimental evidence that just considering the energy of the particles emitted in the beta decay, the nucleus with atomic number increased by 1 and positron then the energy was not conserved. [1]. But this was
unacceptable to Pauli, who then proposed that accompanying beta-decay was “the expulsion… of a very penetrating radiation of neutral