Quote from erosI have feeling that if energetic muons >120Mev etc. then cloud chamber don't detect them??
Too little braking energy to leave tracs..?
Muons of 120 MeV of energy should be able to ionize the supersaturated vapor particles in a cloud chamber and produce visible tracks.
However those of the energies reported by Holmlid (10-20 MeV) would probably not even be able to enter a standard cloud chamber (again, depending on how the cloud chamber is made). This is what I was putting into question.
Then there is also a matter of flux. The average cosmic ray muon background flux, from what I read, is about 1 muon per cm2 per minute. Source: http://cosmic.lbl.gov/SKliewer/Cosmic_Rays/Muons.htm
Holmlid estimates in his case a total intensity of 10^9 per second per steradian at 2 meters of distance from the K-Fe2O3 source, which should translate - *if* I am correct! - to 25000 muons per cm2 per second at 2m of distance. If the muons have sufficient energy to get through a cloud chamber this signal should be very visible as it would be so much larger than the background, at least speaking of the number of tracks produced.