URL: https://astro.desy.de/neutrino_astronomy/icetop/index_eng.html
.
Breadcrumb Navigation
IceTop on Top of IceCube
IceTop is a km2 array of particle detectors that is installed at the South Pole, right above the IceCube neutrino telescope. It is used to detect extended particle showers induced in our atmosphere by high-energy cosmic rays.
Its spacing (80 stations = 160 Cherenkov ice tanks, 125 m mean distance) allows the observation of cosmic rays with energies between 1014 eV and 1017 eV. In this regime, the energy spectrum is expected to include 2 kinks: The first, already observed by most experiments, is at the energy where presumably light cosmic rays (protons) start to be able to escape the magnetic fields of our galaxy and the observed fluxes thus decrease faster above than below ("knee"). A second "knee" is expected but yet unobserved for heavier particles like iron nuclei. Using IceCube as a high-energy neutrino detector and the CORSIKA air shower simulation package, IceTop can identify the masses of primary cosmic ray particles and unfold the energy spectra for different primaries.
Being a part of IceCube, the main goals of IceTop sum up to be the following:
- Using the InIce-part of IceCube to scan the potential second-knee-regime in the Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum for different primaries
- calibrating IceCube using coincident muon bundles and comparing reconstruction results
- enhance the noise detection of IceCube by providing a veto on muons generated by air showers above the telescope
Stations deployed |
Tanks deployed |
% of total array |
|
|---|---|---|---|
2006 |
16 |
32 |
20 |
2007 |
26 |
52 |
33 |
2008 |
40 |
80 |
50 |
2009 |
59 |
118 |
74 |
2010 |
73 |
146 |
91 |
2011 |
81 |
162 |
100 |
