Measurements with cosmic muons to monitor the stability of a civil building on a long time-scale

Due to their penetration capability, cosmic muons may provide a way to monitor the alignment and possible long term deformations of large structures, such as historical or other civil buildings. The basic idea behind this possibility is to look for any misalignment between position-sensitive detectors, fixed to different parts of the structure, relative to the original alignment condition. In this paper we discuss the possibility of employing Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) as tracking devices, operating them in coincidence with additional detectors without tracking capability. One of the MRPC telescopes (size 158× 82 cm2) of the Extreme Energy Events (EEE) project, installed in the underground floor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Catania, was used together with a 40× 60 cm2 scintillator-based detector, located at about 16 m vertical distance, on the third floor of the same building. Coincidence measurements were carried out over a period of about two months by shifting the position of the smaller detector, to mimic the movement of the structure. Plans for future studies with different detectors and under different geometrical configurations are also discussed.