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Measurement of the mean number of muons with energies above 500 GeV in air showers detected with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

R. Abbasi16, M. Ackermann63, J. Adams17, S. K. Agarwalla39,*, J. A. Aguilar10, M. Ahlers21, J. M. Alameddine22, N. M. Amin43, K. Andeen41 et al. (IceCube Collaboration)

K. Andeen41, C. Argüelles13, Y. Ashida52, S. Athanasiadou63, S. N. Axani43, R. Babu23, X. Bai49, J. Baines-Holmes39, A. Balagopal V.39, S. W. Barwick29, S. Bash26, V. Basu52, R. Bay6, J. J. Beatty19,20, J. Becker Tjus9,†, P. Behrens1, J. Beise61, C. Bellenghi26, B. Benkel63, S. BenZvi51, D. Berley18, E. Bernardini47,‡, D. Z. Besson35, E. Blaufuss18, L. Bloom58, S. Blot63, I. Bodo39, F. Bontempo30, J. Y. Book Motzkin13, C. Boscolo Meneguolo47,‡, S. Böser40, O. Botner61, J. Böttcher1, J. Braun39, B. Brinson4, Z. Brisson-Tsavoussis32, R. T. Burley2, D. Butterfield39, M. A. Campana48, K. Carloni13, J. Carpio33,34, S. Chattopadhyay39,*, N. Chau10, Z. Chen55, D. Chirkin39, S. Choi52, B. A. Clark18, A. Coleman61, P. Coleman1, G. H. Collin14, A. Connolly19,20, J. M. Conrad14, R. Corley52, D. F. Cowen59,60, C. De Clercq11, J. J. DeLaunay59, D. Delgado13, T. Delmeulle10, S. Deng1, P. Desiati39, K. D. de Vries11, G. de Wasseige36, T. DeYoung23, J. C. Díaz-Vélez39, S. DiKerby23, M. Dittmer42, A. Domi25, L. Draper52, L. Dueser1, D. Durnford24, K. Dutta40, M. A. DuVernois39, T. Ehrhardt40, L. Eidenschink26, A. Eimer25, P. Eller26, E. Ellinger62, D. Elsässer22, R. Engel30,31, H. Erpenbeck39, W. Esmail42, S. Eulig13, J. Evans18, P. A. Evenson43, K. L. Fan18, K. Fang39, K. Farrag15, A. R. Fazely5, A. Fedynitch57, N. Feigl8, C. Finley54, L. Fischer63, D. Fox59, A. Franckowiak9, S. Fukami63, P. Fürst1, J. Gallagher38, E. Ganster1, A. Garcia13, M. Garcia43, G. Garg39,*, E. Genton13,36, L. Gerhardt7, A. Ghadimi58, C. Glaser61, T. Glüsenkamp61, J. G. Gonzalez43, S. Goswami33,34, A. Granados23, D. Grant12, S. J. Gray18, S. Griffin39, S. Griswold51, K. M. Groth21, D. Guevel39, C. Günther1, P. Gutjahr22, C. Ha53, C. Haack25, A. Hallgren61, L. Halve1, F. Halzen39, L. Hamacher1, M. Ha Minh26, M. Handt1, K. Hanson39, J. Hardin14, A. A. Harnisch23, P. Hatch32, A. Haungs30, J. Häußler1, K. Helbing62, J. Hellrung9, L. Hennig25, L. Heuermann1, R. Hewett17, N. Heyer61, S. Hickford62, A. 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Pyras52, C. Raab36, J. Rack-Helleis40, N. Rad63, M. Ravn61, K. Rawlins3, Z. Rechav39, A. Rehman43, I. Reistroffer49, E. Resconi26, S. Reusch63, C. D. Rho56, W. Rhode22, B. Riedel39, A. Rifaie62, E. J. Roberts2, S. Robertson6,7, M. Rongen25, A. Rosted15, C. Rott52, T. Ruhe22, L. Ruohan26, J. Saffer31, D. Salazar-Gallegos23, P. Sampathkumar30, A. Sandrock62, G. Sanger-Johnson23, M. Santander58, S. Sarkar46, J. Savelberg1, P. Schaile26, M. Schaufel1, H. Schieler30, S. Schindler25, L. Schlickmann40, B. Schlüter42, F. Schlüter10, N. Schmeisser62, T. Schmidt18, F. G. Schröder30,43, L. Schumacher25, S. Schwirn1, S. Sclafani18, D. Seckel43, L. Seen39, M. Seikh35, S. Seunarine50, P. A. Sevle Myhr36, R. Shah48, S. Shefali31, N. Shimizu15, B. Skrzypek6, R. Snihur39, J. Soedingrekso22, A. Søgaard21, D. Soldin52, P. Soldin1, G. Sommani9, C. Spannfellner26, G. M. Spiczak50, C. Spiering63, J. Stachurska28, M. Stamatikos20, T. Stanev43, T. Stezelberger7, T. Stürwald62, T. Stuttard21, G. W. Sullivan18, I. Taboada4, S. Ter-Antonyan5, A. Terliuk26, A. Thakuri49, M. Thiesmeyer39, W. G. Thompson13, J. Thwaites39, S. Tilav43, K. Tollefson23, S. Toscano10, D. Tosi39, A. Trettin63, A. K. Upadhyay39,*, K. Upshaw5, A. Vaidyanathan41, N. Valtonen-Mattila9,61, J. Valverde41, J. Vandenbroucke39, T. Van Eeden63, N. van Eijndhoven11, J. van Santen63, J. Vara42, F. Varsi31, M. Venugopal30, M. Vereecken36, S. Vergara Carrasco17, S. Verpoest43, D. Veske45, A. Vijai18, J. Villarreal14, C. Walck54, A. Wang4, E. Warrick58, C. Weaver23, P. Weigel14, A. Weindl30, A. Y. Wen13, C. Wendt39, J. Werthebach22, M. Weyrauch30, N. Whitehorn23, C. H. Wiebusch1, D. R. Williams58, L. Witthaus22, M. Wolf26, G. Wrede25, X. W. Xu5, J. P. Yañez24, Y. Yao39, E. Yildizci39, S. Yoshida15, R. Young35, F. Yu13, S. Yu52, T. Yuan39, A. Zegarelli9, S. Zhang23, Z. Zhang55, P. Zhelnin13, and P. Zilberman39 (IceCube Collaboration)

  • 1III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany
  • 2Department of Physics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 5005, Australia
  • 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Drive, Anchorage, Alaska 99508, USA
  • 4School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
  • 5Department of Physics, Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70813, USA
  • 6Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 7Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 8Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, D-12489 Berlin, Germany
  • 9Fakultät für Physik & Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany
  • 10Université Libre de Bruxelles, Science Faculty CP230, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
  • 11Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Dienst ELEM, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
  • 12Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
  • 13Department of Physics and Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 14Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 15Department of Physics and The International Center for Hadron Astrophysics, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan
  • 16Department of Physics, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60660, USA
  • 17Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
  • 18Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
  • 19Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
  • 20Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
  • 21Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 22Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University, D-44221 Dortmund, Germany
  • 23Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
  • 24Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E1, Canada
  • 25Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
  • 26Physik-department, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany
  • 27Département de physique nucléaire et corpusculaire, Université de Genève, CH-1211 Genève, Switzerland
  • 28Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent, B-9000 Gent, Belgium
  • 29Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA
  • 30Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Astroparticle Physics, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
  • 31Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Experimental Particle Physics, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
  • 32Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada
  • 33Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154, USA
  • 34Nevada Center for Astrophysics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154, USA
  • 35Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA
  • 36Centre for Cosmology, Particle Physics and Phenomenology–CP3, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
  • 37Department of Physics, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia 31207-0001, USA
  • 38Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
  • 39Department of Physics and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
  • 40Institute of Physics, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, D-55099 Mainz, Germany
  • 41Department of Physics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201, USA
  • 42Institut für Kernphysik, Universität Münster, D-48149 Münster, Germany
  • 43Bartol Research Institute and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA
  • 44Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
  • 45Columbia Astrophysics and Nevis Laboratories, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
  • 46Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
  • 47Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia Galileo Galilei, Università Degli Studi di Padova, I-35122 Padova PD, Italy
  • 48Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
  • 49Physics Department, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota 57701, USA
  • 50Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, River Falls, Wisconsin 54022, USA
  • 51Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, USA
  • 52Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
  • 53Department of Physics, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Republic of Korea
  • 54Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
  • 55Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3800, USA
  • 56Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
  • 57Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan
  • 58Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, USA
  • 59Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
  • 60Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
  • 61Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE-75120 Uppsala, Sweden
  • 62Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal, D-42119 Wuppertal, Germany
  • 63Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Platanenallee 6, D-15738 Zeuthen, Germany

  • *Also at Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, Sainik School Post, Bhubaneswar 751005, India.
  • †Also at Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
  • ‡Also at INFN Padova, I-35131 Padova, Italy.
  • §Also at Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0032, Japan.
  • ∥Now at INFN Padova, I-35131 Padova, Italy.
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 082004 – Published 17 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lrjy-3hht

Abstract

We present a measurement of the mean number of muons with energies larger than 500 GeV in near-vertical extensive air showers initiated by cosmic rays with primary energies between 2.5 and 100 PeV. The measurement is based on events detected in coincidence between the surface and in-ice detectors of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Air showers are recorded on the surface by IceTop, while a bundle of high-energy muons (TeV muons) from the shower can subsequently produce a tracklike event in the IceCube in-ice array. Results are obtained assuming the hadronic interaction models Sibyll 2.1, QGSJet-II.04, and EPOS-LHC. The measured number of TeV muons is found to be in agreement with predictions from air-shower simulations. The results have also been compared to a measurement of low-energy muons by IceTop, indicating an inconsistency between the predictions for low- and high-energy muons in simulations based on the EPOS-LHC model.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 112, 082004– Published 17 October, 2025
  • Received 23 June 2025
  • Accepted 8 September 2025
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