Cosmic-ray Physics with IceCube

使用 IceCube 进行宇宙射线物理

• 批准号: 0856253
• 负责人: Thomas Gaisser
• 金额: $ 110万
• 依托单位: University of Delaware
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0856253&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Cosmic; ray; Physics; IceCube

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The main goal of this project is to search for a signature in the energy-dependent composition of the primary cosmic rays of a transition from galactic cosmic rays to a higher energy population of particles from extra-galactic sources. While the primary mission of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is to search for high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin by measuring events in the deep detector induced by neutrinos from below, the dominant signal in IceCube is due to downward events caused by cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere. By looking for events from below, IceCube uses the Earth as a shield against this downward background. With its surface component IceTop, IceCube makes a 3-D air shower array with important potential for studying the downward cosmic rays. The novel feature of the IceCube/IceTop air-shower array is its large acceptance for events observed in coincidence. IceTop will use the ratio of the signal in the deep detectors to the signal on the surface to measure the relative concentration of different groups of nuclei in the primary cosmic radiation in an energy range not accessible to direct measurements with satellites because of the low intensity. The angular dependence of showers measured by IceTop alone and other features of the data are also sensitive to primary composition. This gives a complementary sensitivity to composition that in principle will remove some of the model-dependence inherent in the simulations used to interpret the data. Continued reliance on postdocs and students provides a broader impact to this proposed research and firmly grounds this effort in its educational mission.

该奖项根据 2009 年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法 111-5）提供资金。该项目的主要目标是寻找从银河宇宙射线到银河外来源的更高能量粒子群转变的初级宇宙射线的能量依赖成分的特征。虽然 IceCube 中微子观测站的主要任务是通过测量深部探测器中由来自下方的中微子引起的事件来寻找天体物理起源的高能中微子，但 IceCube 中的主要信号是由于大气中宇宙射线相互作用引起的下行事件。通过寻找来自下方的事件，IceCube 使用地球作为抵御这种向下背景的盾牌。 IceCube 凭借其表面组件 IceTop 制成了 3D 空气簇射阵列，对于研究向下的宇宙射线具有重要潜力。 IceCube/IceTop 空气喷淋阵列的新颖特点是它对巧合观察到的事件有很大的接受度。 IceTop将利用深部探测器中的信号与表面信号的比率来测量初级宇宙辐射中不同原子核组的相对浓度，该能量范围由于强度低而无法用卫星直接测量。仅由 IceTop 测量的流星雨的角度依赖性和数据的其他特征也对主要成分敏感。这对组合提供了互补的敏感性，原则上将消除用于解释数据的模拟中固有的一些模型依赖性。对博士后和学生的持续依赖为这项拟议的研究提供了更广泛的影响，并将这项努力牢牢扎根于其教育使命中。