An improved muon track reconstruction for IceCube

• Main Authors: Bradascio, Federica, Glüsenkamp, Thorsten
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg 2019
• Subjects: muon energy loss; muon tracks; muon track data analysis; muon secondary; charge current; radiation Cherenkov; IceCube; angular resolution; Cherenkov counter; photomultiplier; parametrization; stochastic; photon; pole; ice; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3204/pubdb-2020-00365; http://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/434822

36th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC2019, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, 24 Jul 2019 - 1 Aug 2019; 7 pp. (2019). : IceCube is a cubic-kilometer Cherenkov telescope operating at the South Pole. One of its main objectives is to detect astrophysical neutrinos and identify their sources. High-energy muon neutrinos are identified through the secondary muons produced via charge current interactions with the ice. The present best-performing directional reconstruction of the muon track is a maximum likelihood method which uses the arrival time distribution of Cherenkov photons registered by the experiment's photomultipliers. A known systematic shortcoming of the prevailing method is to assume a continuous energy loss along the muon track. This contribution discusses a generalized Ansatz where the expected arrival time distribution is parametrized by a stochastic muon energy loss pattern. This more realistic parametrization of the muon energy loss profile leads to an improvement of about 20% to the muon angular resolution of IceCube.