  A neutron monitor (NM) is, since the 1950s, a standard ground-based detector
whose count rate reflects cosmic-ray variability. The worldwide network of NMs
forms a rough spectrometer for cosmic rays. Recently, a brand-new data
acquisition (DAQ) system has been installed on the DOMC and DOMB NMs, located
at the Concordia research station on the Central Antarctic plateau. The new DAQ
system digitizes, at a 2-MHz sampling rate, and records all individual pulses
corresponding to secondary particles in the detector. An analysis of the pulse
characteristics (viz. shape, magnitude, duration, waiting time) has been
performed, and several clearly distinguishable branches were identified: (A)
corresponding to signal from individual secondary neutrons; (B) representing
the detector's noise; (C) double pulses corresponding to the {shortly separated
nucleons of the same} atmospheric cascades; (D) very-high multiple pulses which
are likely caused by atmospheric muons; and (E) double pulses potentially
caused by contamination of the neighbouring detector. An analysis of the
waiting time distributions has revealed two clearly distinguishable peaks: peak
(I) at about 1 msec being related to the intra-cascade diffusion and
thermalisation of secondary atmospheric neutrons; and peak (II) at 30--1000
msec corresponding to individual atmospheric cascades. This opens a new
possibility to study spectra of cosmic-ray particles in a single location as
well as details of the cosmic-ray induced atmospheric cascades, using the same
dataset.
