Measurements of Cosmic Rays with IceTop/IceCube: Status and Results

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent cosmic-ray measurements with IceTop/IceCube, highlighting their findings on energy spectrum, composition, anisotropy, gamma sources, and transient events, advancing understanding of high-energy cosmic phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent results from IceTop/IceCube, including new insights into cosmic-ray composition and high-energy phenomena at the South Pole.

Findings

Measured cosmic-ray energy spectrum and composition.

Detected anisotropy in cosmic-ray arrival directions.

Identified potential PeV gamma-ray sources.

Abstract

The IceCube Observatory at the South Pole is composed of a cubic kilometer scale neutrino telescope buried beneath the icecap and a square-kilometer surface water Cherenkov tank detector array known as IceTop. The combination of the surface array with the in-ice detector allows the dominantly electromagnetic signal of air showers at the surface and their high-energy muon signal in the ice to be measured in coincidence. This ratio is known to carry information about the nuclear composition of the primary cosmic rays. This paper reviews the recent results from cosmic-ray measurements performed with IceTop/IceCube: energy spectrum, mass composition, anisotropy, search for PeV gamma sources, detection of high energy muons to probe the initial stages of the air shower development, and study of transient events using IceTop in scaler mode.