Recent results of cosmic-ray studies with IceTop at the IceCube Neutrino

TL;DR

This paper presents recent experimental results from IceTop at IceCube, analyzing cosmic-ray air showers to understand their origins, especially in the transition from galactic to extragalactic sources, and discusses future detector enhancements.

Contribution

It reports new measurements of cosmic-ray spectra using combined IceTop and IceCube data, and discusses future upgrades to improve cosmic-ray studies.

Findings

Reconstructed energy spectra for different primary mass groups.

Insights into the transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays.

Prospects for enhanced surface detector arrays.

Abstract

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic-kilometer Cherenkov detector that is deployed deep in the Antarctic ice at the South Pole. A square kilometer companion surface detector, IceTop, located directly above in the in-ice array, measures cosmic-ray initiated extensive air showers with primary energies between 100 TeV and 1 EeV. By combining the events measured by IceTop and the in-ice detectors of IceCube in coincidence, we can reconstruct the energy spectra for different primary mass groups. Therefore, we provide information about the origin of cosmic rays, in particular, in the transition region from galactic to extra-galactic origin of high-energy cosmic rays. In this contribution we present recent experimental results, as well as prospects by the foreseen enhancement of the surface detectors of IceTop and the future IceCube-Gen2 surface array.