Cosmic Ray Spectrum and Composition from Three Years of IceTop and IceCube

Abstract

The IceCube Observatory includes both a deep in-ice array of 86 strings of sensors, and a surface array of 81 stations of frozen water tank detectors (IceTop). These multiple detectors make it possible to measure different cosmic ray air shower components, and to combine these measurements to determine both the spectrum and composition of cosmic rays. This work focuses on two analyses of 3 years of IceCube/IceTop data, from 2010–2013. In one, IceTop alone is used to measure an all-particle spectrum using an assumed composition model. In the other, coincidence events which trigger both IceTop and IceCube are used to create individual spectra for four different nuclear groups (protons, helium, oxygen, and iron).