SciPost Submission Page
Mean number of TeV muons in air showers measured with IceTop and IceCube
by Stef Verpoest for the IceCube collaboration
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Stef Verpoest |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | scipost_202411_00062v1 (pdf) |
| Date submitted: | 2024-11-30 04:17 |
| Submitted by: | Verpoest, Stef |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics Proceedings |
| Proceedings issue: | 22nd International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI 2024) |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Experimental |
Abstract
IceCube is a cubic kilometer detector buried in the Antarctic ice at the South Pole. Combined with its surface component, IceTop, it constitutes a unique detector for air-shower physics in the PeV to EeV primary energy regime. In this contribution, a recent measurement of the mean multiplicity of muons with energies above several 100 GeV ("TeV muons") in near-vertical air showers seen in coincidence between IceTop and the IceCube in-ice array is reported. The results are consistent with expectations from simulations based on the hadronic interaction models used in the analysis: Sibyll 2.1, and the post-LHC models QGSJet-II.04 and EPOS LHC. However, inconsistencies with other air-shower observables are found for all considered models. Notably, the observed density of GeV muons at large lateral distance in IceTop indicates a lighter cosmic-ray mass composition than the high-energy muon measurement.
Current status:
Reports on this Submission
Strengths
1) The topic is valuable and is an open point in EAS studies
2) The analysis is new and it compares with past results
3) Results are interesting and useful for the full community and for the refinement of the hadronic interaction models
Weaknesses
1) Section 3.2 is hard to follow because of a mismatch between the figure 3left and what was supposed to be plotted there
2) More in general the limit to the number of pages which is probably imposed by the length required for the proceedings makes less clear the paper. As an example interesting results such as the behaviour of the models compared with iceTop data alone can be found only opening the papers in the references. It would have been nice to have all the results in a figure within this proceedings but clearly there is not enough space for it.
Report
The paper describes the analysis and shows the results of the mean number of TeV muons detected by Icecube in coincidence with IceTop. The results are extremely interesting because allow to assess information difficult to obtain with EAS arrays which can access only the muon component of low energy. The paper in general reads well, the results are well described, however, I found difficulties in understanding section 3.2 due to the wrong assignment of the plot presented on fig.3 left. Therefore, some assumptions have to be taken as granted.
Requested changes
1) lines 31-32: remove 'below the surface' which is repeated twice in the text.
2) lines 77-78: fig. 3left does not show any correction ratio. The plot should be changed according to the text.
3) lines 81-83: same as 77-78. The sentence is not directly supported by the plot.
4) Figure 3 left and it's caption do not match.
Recommendation
Ask for minor revision
Author: Stef Verpoest on 2025-02-17 [id 5224]
(in reply to Report 1 on 2025-01-11)I thank the referee for their detailed examination of the text.
The proceedings have been updated with all the requested changes, most importantly the identified inconsistency between the text and Fig. 3 (left).
The figure requested by the referee comparing the low- and high-energy muon results from IceCube, which is not included in the article due to the page limit, will be included in a future journal publication.