Study of Cosmogenic Background Counts in Small Balloon Borne Detectors Through Simulation and Observation

In the context of high-energy astronomy by balloon-borne detectors, the secondary particles produced by the cosmic-ray interaction in the Earth`s atmosphere is very important. This atmospheric particles and radiation causes substantial background counts in the detectors and is worth to study in details. In this work, we calculate the cosmic-ray generated secondary particles in the atmosphere by means of Monte Carlo simulation. A 3D description of the atmospheric and geomagnetic field configurations surrounding the Earth is considered for the simulation, as well as the electromagnetic and nuclear interaction processes using Geant4 simulation toolkit. We use this result to understand the background counts in a small balloon-borne X-ray detector operating near the tropical latitude (geomagnetic latitude: ~ 14.50 deg N). To simulate the counts produced in the detector due to secondary cosmic-ray particles, we consider a realistic mass model description of the detector under consideration and compare the simulated result with observed detector counts.