An improved muon track reconstruction for IceCube

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...

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Bibliographic Details
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
Description
Summary: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.

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