Unfolding the Atmospheric Muon Flux with IceCube: Investigating Stopping Muons and High-Energy Prompt Contributions
IceCube,
R. Abbasi,
M. Ackermann,
J. Adams,
S.K. Agarwalla,
J. Aguilar,
M. Ahlers, J.M. Alameddine, S. Ali, N.M.B. Amin, K. Andeen, C. Argüelles, Y. Ashida, S. Athanasiadou, S. Axani, R. Babu, X. Bai, J. Baines-Holmes, A. Balagopal V, S.W. Barwick, S. Bash, V. Basu, R. Bay, J. Beatty, J. Becker Tjus, P. Behrens, J. Beise, C. Bellenghi, B. Benkel, S. BenZvi, D. Berley, E. Bernardini, D. Besson, E. Blaufuss, L. Bloom, S. Blot, I. Bodo, F. Bontempo, J. Book Motzkin, C. Boscolo Meneguolo, S. Boser, O. Botner, J. Bottcher, J. Braun, B. Brinson, Z. Brisson-Tsavoussis, R.T. Burley, D. Butterfield, M. Campana, K. Carloni, J. Carpio, S. Chattopadhyay, T.N. Chau, Z. Chen, D. Chirkin, S. Choi, B. Clark, A. Coleman, P.J.C. Coleman, G. Collin, D.A. Coloma Borja, A. Connolly, J. Conrad, R. Corley, D. Cowen, C. De Clercq, J. DeLaunay, D. Delgado, T. Delmeulle, S. Deng, P. Desiati, K. de Vries, G. de Wasseige, T. DeYoung, J.C. Diaz-Velez, S. DiKerby, M. Dittmer, A. Domi, L. Draper, L. Dueser, D. Durnford, K. Dutta, M. DuVernois, T. Ehrhardt, L. Eidenschink, A. Eimer, P. Eller, E. Ellinger, D. Elsässer, R. Engel, H. Erpenbeck, W. Esmail, S. Eulig, J. Evans, P. Evenson, K.L. Fan, K. Fang, K.R. Farrag, A. Fazely, A. Fedynitch, N. Feigl, C. Finley, L. Fischer, D.B. Fox, A. Franckowiak, S. Fukami, P. Furst, J. Gallagher, E. Ganster, A. Garcia, M. Garcia, G. Garg, E. Genton, L. Gerhardt, A. Ghadimi, C. Glaser, T. Glüsenkamp, J. Gonzalez, S. Goswami, A. Granados, D. Grant, S. Gray, S. Griffin, S. Griswold, K.M. Groth, D.J. Guevel, C. Günther, P. Gutjahr*, C.H. Ha, C. Haack, A. Hallgren, L. Halve, F. Halzen, L. Hamacher, M. Ha Minh, M. Handt, K. Hanson, J. Hardin, A. Harnisch, P. Hatch, A. Haungs, J. Haussler, K. Helbing, J. Hellrung, B. Henke, L. Hennig, F. Henningsen, L.P. Heuermann, R. Hewett, N. Heyer, S. Hickford, A. Hidvegi, C. Hill, G. Hill, R. Hmaid, K. Hoffman, D. Hooper, S. Hori, K. Hoshina, M. Hostert, W. Hou, T. Huber, K. Hultqvist, K. Hymon, A. Ishihara, W. Iwakiri, M. Jacquart, S. Jain, O. Janik, M. Jansson, M. Jeong, M. Jin, N. Kamp, D. Kang, W. Kang, X. Kang, A. Kappes, L. Kardum, T. Karg, M. Karl, A. Karle, A. Katil, M. Kauer, J. Kelley, M. Khanal, A. Khatee Zathul, A. Kheirandish, H. KimKu, J. Kiryluk, C. Klein, S. Klein, Y. Kobayashi, A. Kochocki, R. Koirala, H. Kolanoski, T. Kontrimas, L. Kopke, C. Kopper, J. Koskinen, P. Koundal, M. Kowalski, T. Kozynets, N. Krieger, K. Jayakumar, T. Krishnan, K. Kruiswijk, E. Krupczak, A. Kumar, E. Kun, N. Kurahashi, N.N. Lad, C. Lagunas Gualda, L. Lallement Arnaud, M. Lamoureux, M.J. Larson, F.H. Lauber, J. Lazar, K. Leonard DeHolton, A. Leszczynska, J. Liao, C. Lin, Y. Liu, M. Liubarska, C. Love, L. Lu, F. Lucarelli, W. Luszczak, Y. Lyu, J. Madsen, E. Magnus, K. Mahn, Y. Makino, E. Manao, S. Mancina, A. Mand, I.C. Maris, S. Marka, Z. Marka, L. Marten, I. Martinez-Soler, R.H. Maruyama, J. Mauro, F. Mayhew, F. McNally, J.V. Mead, K. Meagher, S. Mechbal, A. Medina, M. Meier, Y. Merckx, L. Merten, J. Mitchell, L. Molchany, T. Montaruli, R. Moore, Y. Morii, A. Mosbrugger, M. Moulai, D. Mousadi, E. Moyaux, T. Mukherjee, R. Naab, M. Nakos, U. Naumann, J. Necker, L. Neste, M. Neumann, H. Niederhausen, M.U. Nisa, K. Noda, A. Noell, A. Novikov, A. Pollmann, V. O'Dell, A. Olivas, R. Ørsøe, J. Osborn, E. O'Sullivan, V. Palusova, H. Pandya, A. Parenti, N. Park, V. Parrish, E.N. Paudel, L. Paul, C. Pérez de los Heros, T. Pernice, J. Peterson, M. Plum, A. Ponten, V. Poojyam, Y. Popovych, M. Prado Rodriguez, B. Pries, R. Procter-Murphy, G. Przybylski, L. Pyras, C. Raab, J. Rack-Helleis, N. Rad, M.L. Ravn, K. Rawlins, Z. Rechav, A. Rehman, I. Reistroffer, E. Resconi, S. Reusch, C.D. Rho, W. Rhode, L. Ricca, B. Riedel, A. Rifaie, E. Roberts, S. Robertson, M. Rongen, A. Rosted, C. Rott, T. Ruhe, L. Ruohan, D. Ryckbosch, J. Saffer, D. Salazar-Gallegos, P. Sampathkumar, A. Sandrock, G. Sanger-Johnson, M. Santander, S. Sarkar, J. Savelberg, M. Scarnera, P. Schaile, M. Schaufel, H. Schieler, S. Schindler, L. Schlickmann, B. Schlüter, F. Schlüter, N. Schmeisser, T. Schmidt, F. Schröder, L. Schumacher, S. Schwirn, S. Sclafani, D. Seckel, L. Seen, M.F.H. Seikh, S. Seunarine, P.A. Sevle Myhr, R. Shah, S. Shefali, S. N, B. Skrzypek, R. Snihur, J. Soedingrekso, A. Sogaard, D. Soldin, P. Soldin, G. Sommani, C. Spannfellner, G. Spiczak, C. Spiering, J. Stachurska, M. Stamatikos, T. Stanev, T. Stezelberger, T. Sturwald, T. Stuttard, G. Sullivan, I. Taboada, S. Ter-Antonyan, A. Terliuk, A. Thakuri, M. Thiesmeyer, W. Thompson, J. Thwaites, S. Tilav, K. Tollefson, S. Toscano, D. Tosi, A. Trettin, A.K. Upadhyay, K. Upshaw, A. Vaidyanathan, N. Valtonen-Mattila, J. Valverde, J. Vandenbroucke, T. van Eeden, N. van Eijndhoven, L. van Rootselaar, J. van Santen, F.J. Vara Carbonell, F. Varsi, M. Venugopal, M. Vereecken, S. Vergara Carrasco, S. Verpoest, D. Veske, A. Vijai, J. Villarreal, C. Walck, A. Wang, E. Warrick, C. Weaver, P. Weigel, A. Weindl, J. Weldert, A. Wen, C. Wendt, J. Werthebach, M. Weyrauch, N. Whitehorn, C. Wiebusch, D. Williams, M. Wolf, G. Wrede, X. Xu, J.P. Yanez, Y. Yao, E.B. Yildizci, S. Yoshida, R. Young, F. Yu, S. Yu, T. Yuan, A. Zegarelli, S. Zhang, Z. Zhang, P. Zhelnin, P. Zilberman and L. Witthauset al. (click to show)*: corresponding author
Pre-published on:
September 23, 2025
Published on:
—
Abstract
Atmospheric muons produced in cosmic-ray air showers are classified as conventional muons from pion and kaon
decays and prompt muons from heavy hadron decays. Conventional muons dominate at lower energies, and the
prompt component becomes dominant at PeV energies and above. Precisely measuring the atmospheric muon
flux from a few GeV to several PeV is valuable for advancing our understanding of cosmic-ray interactions and
testing hadronic interaction models. Low-energy muons that stop within the IceCube in-ice array provide
valuable information about the energy spectrum of muons from a few hundred GeV up to
10 TeV.
Machine learning techniques are employed to enhance event reconstruction and selection to provide insights
into the conventional and prompt components. This contribution presents the unfolding of the energy spectrum
of stopping muons in IceCube as well as the unfolding of high-energy muons to probe the prompt component.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/1.501.0281
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