Speaker
Dr
Jan Auffenberg
(RWTH Aachen University)
Description
IceCube is the world's largest high-energy neutrino observatory, built at the South Pole. For neutrino astronomy, a large background-free sample of well-reconstructed neutrinos is essential. The main background for this signal are muons and neutrinos which are generated in cosmic-ray air showers in the Earth's atmosphere. The coincident detection of these air showers by the surface detector IceTop has been proven to be a powerful veto for atmospheric neutrinos and muons in the field of view of the southern hemisphere. This motivates this study to significantly extend IceTop in a cost-efficient way and to explore the increased physics potential. First simple estimates indicate that such a veto detector will more than double the discovery potential of current point source analyses. Here, we present the motivation and capabilities based on first simulations.
Primary author
Dr
Jan Auffenberg
(RWTH Aachen University)
