BATATA: A device to characterize the punch-through observed in underground muon detectors and to operate as a prototype for AMIGA

BATATA is a hodoscope comprising three X-Y planes of plastic scintillation detectors. This system of buried counters is complemented by an array of 3 water-Cherenkov detectors, located at the vertices of an equilateral triangle with 200 m sides. This small surface array is triggered by extensive air showers. The BATATA detector will be installed at the centre of the AMIGA array, where it will be used to quantify the electromagnetic contamination of the muon signal as a function of depth, and so to validate, in situ, the numerical estimates made of the optimal depth for the AMIGA muon detectors. BATATA will also serves as a prototype to aid the design of these detectors.