Anisotropy of TeV and PeV cosmic rays with IceCube and IceTop

TL;DR

This study reports the detection of anisotropy in TeV to PeV cosmic rays using IceCube and IceTop, revealing directional variations in cosmic ray arrival directions and providing insights into their origins.

Contribution

It presents new observational evidence of cosmic ray anisotropy at high energies using combined data from IceCube and IceTop, enhancing understanding of cosmic ray propagation.

Findings

Anisotropy observed in 20-400 TeV cosmic rays with IceCube.

Consistent anisotropy signals found in IceTop data.

Enhanced potential to analyze primary cosmic ray characteristics.

Abstract

The interaction of high energy cosmic rays with the Earth's atmosphere produces extensive air showers of secondary particles with a large muon component. By exploiting the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes to high energy muons, it is possible to use these detectors for precision cosmic ray studies. The high rate of cosmic-ray muon events provides a high-statistics data sample that can be used to look for anisotropy in the arrival directions of the parent particles at the per-mille level. This paper reports on the observation of anisotropy in the cosmic ray data collected with the IceCube neutrino telescope in the 20-400 TeV energy range at multiple angular scales. New data from the IceTop air shower array, located on the ice surface above IceCube, shows an anisotropy that is consistent with the high-energy IceCube results. The sensitivity of IceTop to all the components of the extensive air shower will allow us to explore in more detail the characteristics of the primary cosmic rays associated with the observed anisotropy.