Editing Muon Decay Simulation (section)

==Background==

At any given point in time the earth is being hit by cosmic rays released by the sun. By the time these rays reach the earth most have decayed into muons, and have an energy of about 4 GeV <span style="color:red">''citation needed''</span>. The energy distribution of these particles is modeled by formula below:

 [[File:Energy_distribution_equation.jpg]]
 Where phi is the zenith angle, angle of trajectory measured from the vertical,
 and E is a particular energy of a particle.
 
 This distribution produces the following 3D graph:
 [[File:Muon_Flux_Graph.gif]]

The zenith angle of the particles follow a cosine squared distribution <span style="color:red">''citation needed''</span>. These muons can further decay into positrons or electrons (from muon+, muon- respectively)(<span style="color:red">''need to fix into symbols''</span>) and some nutrinos. Any of these particles can be detected in a variety of ways, because they all carry a charge. By moving through certain materials the particles can ionize a path through the material, losing energy as it does so. There are lots of apparatus that can detect this phenomenon or make it visible to the human eye.