Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 85: Cosmic Rays IV
T 85.3: Talk
Thursday, March 19, 2026, 16:45–17:00, KS 00.006
Constraints on the Atmospheric Muon Flux from Stopping and High-Energy Muons in IceCube — •Pascal Gutjahr1,2, Lucas Witthaus1,2, and Lene Van Rootselaar1,2 — 1TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany — 2Lamarr Institute, Dortmund, Germany
Atmospheric muons detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory provide a sensitive probe of cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere. These muons originate from conventional pion and kaon decays as well as from prompt decays of short-lived heavy hadrons, with the latter expected to become significant at the highest energies. This contribution presents an unfolding of the atmospheric muon energy spectrum in IceCube, combining low-energy stopping muons with high-energy through-going muons to cover a broad energy range from several hundred GeV to the PeV scale. Stopping muons, which lose all their energy in the ice, constrain the surface muon spectrum at TeV energies, while high-energy muons provide sensitivity to the prompt component. Event classification and energy reconstruction are performed using deep learning techniques to improve resolution and background rejection. The unfolded spectra are used to study the relative contributions of conventional and prompt muons and are compared to predictions.
Keywords: IceCube; air-shower; atmospheric muons; machine learning; prompt and conventional