Preliminary Results from A Mini Neutron Monitor in Central Saudi Arabia

Different types of ground-based detectors have been developed and deployed around the world to monitor and study cosmic ray (CR) variations. As part of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) space research program and radiation detector laboratory activities, a mini neutron monitor was installed at (KACST) central Saudi Arabia (Riyadh; 24 43; long. 46 40; alt. 613 m; Rc =14.4 Gv) for continuous measurement of the cosmic ray neutrons and exploring their variations. In this paper, the technical aspects of this detector will be briefly discussed. Comparisons of the results obtained from this detector with those from the existing 1 m2 scintillator detector will be presented. The effects of atmospheric pressure on the collected data will be studied. Power spectral analyse were applied for the collected data to identify the short term periodicities.