Speakers
Description
In this talk we will report on the investigation of cosmic rays in the energy range between some 100 TeV and about 1 EeV using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. The IceCube facility combines the in-ice detector with the 1-km$^2$ surface detector IceTop. The combination offers a unique possibility to study the air shower development at the surface together with the high energy muons and neutrinos generated in the first interactions in the upper atmosphere. This can be exploited for the determination of the mass composition of cosmic rays and for tests of hadronic interaction models which air shower analyses are based on.
We will give an overview of experimental results and will discuss their impact on the understanding of cosmic rays and of hadronic air shower models. This includes: cosmic ray spectrum and mass composition, cosmic ray anisotropy, seasonal variations of atmospheric muon and neutrino rates, muon density at ground level, search for galactic PeV photons, measurements of the moon and sun shadows, neutrino generation in the sun's atmosphere and IceTop's cosmic ray veto for the detection of astrophysical neutrinos. Finally we will discuss the ongoing upgrade activities for the current surface detector and for the future extensions (IceCube-Gen2).
