Paul Evenson June CAU Kiel April 20, 2010 Solar Physics with the IceTop Air Shower Array Paul Evenson University of Delaware Department of Physics and Astronomy

Paul Evenson June The First Extraterrestrial Event Detected by IceCube Dec 14, 2006 photograph of auroras near Madison, WI Dec 13, 2006 X3-Class Solar Flare (SOHO) IceTop and Spaceship Earth Observations of the Solar Flare

Paul Evenson June

4 IceTop Detectors Blocks of clear ice produced in tanks at the Pole Cherenkov radiation measured by standard IceCube photon detectors DESY Zeuthen is one production site for these “Digital Optical Modules” or DOM Two tanks separated by 10 meters form a station 2 m 0.9 m Diffusely reflecting liner

Paul Evenson June Large showers with E ~ PeV will clarify transition from galactic to extra-galactic cosmic rays. Showers triggering 4 stations give ~300 TeV threshold for EAS array Small showers (2-10 TeV) associated with the dominant muon background in the deep detector are detected as 2-tank coincidences at a station.

Paul Evenson June Low Energy (1 GeV) “Showers” Particles with energy as low as 1 GeV produce secondaries that survive to the surface Rarely does a single detector see more than one secondary from a primary Large detectors can have high enough counting rates to make statistically significant measurements of the primary flux Conventional detectors count muons or neutrons Energy spectra are determined from detectors located at different geomagnetic cutoffs Flux anisotropy is a source of error in the spectral measurement

Paul Evenson June Why IceTop Works as a GeV Particle Spectrometer The IceTop detectors are thick (90 g/cm 2 ) so the Cherenkov light output is a function of both the species and energy of incoming particles Individual waveform recording, and extensive onboard processing, allow the return of pulse height spectra with 10 second time resolution even at the kilohertz counting rate inherent to the detector

Paul Evenson June Secondary Particle Spectra At the South Pole, spectra of secondary particles “remember” a lot of information about the primary spectrum.

Paul Evenson June Particle Response Functions (Arbitrary Normalization) IceTop tank particle response functions change with selection of the threshold We are now working with FLUKA calculated response functions

Paul Evenson June IceTop Event Overview A lot of this structure is due to pressure variations Much is due to cosmic ray variability The flare event and the “Forbush Decrease” at the end of day 347 are clear The blast of plasma that produces the decrease is what triggers the anomalous auroral activity

Paul Evenson June Solar Particle Spectrum Determination (I) Excess count rate (averaged over approximately one hour near the peak of the event) as a function of pre-event counting rate. Each point represents one discriminator in one DOM. By using the response function for each DOM we fit a power law (in momentum) to the data The lines show this fit and the one sigma (systematic) errors

Paul Evenson June Solar Particle Spectrum Determination (II) IceTop proton spectrum (heavy blue line with one sigma error band). Black line is the assumed background cosmic-ray proton spectrum Points are maximum proton fluxes from GOES spacecraft data.

Paul Evenson June Putting the IceTop Observation in Context Spaceship Earth Neutron Monitor Array Spaceship Earth is a network of neutron monitors strategically deployed to provide precise, real-time, 3-dimensional measurements of the angular distribution of solar cosmic rays: 12 Neutron Monitors on 4 continents Multi-national participation: –Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware (U.S.A.) –IZMIRAN (Russia) –Polar Geophysical Inst. (Russia) –Inst. Solar-Terrestrial Physics (Russia) –Inst. Cosmophysical Research and Aeronomy (Russia) –Inst. Cosmophysical Research and Radio Wave Propagation (Russia) –Australian Antarctic Division –Aurora College (Canada)

Paul Evenson June Cosmic Ray Detectors at High Latitude Trajectories are shown for vertically incident primaries corresponding to the 10-, 20-, … 90-percentile rigidities of a typical solar spectrum

Paul Evenson June Station Location is Carefully Chosen Circles denote station geographical locations. Average asymptotic direction (squares) and range (lines) are separated from station geographical locations. STATION CODES IN: Inuvik, Canada FS: Fort Smith, Canada PE: Peawanuck, Canada NA: Nain, Canada BA: Barentsburg, Norway MA: Mawson, Antarctica AP: Apatity, Russia NO: Norilsk, Russia TB: Tixie Bay, Russia CS: Cape Schmidt, Russia TH: Thule, Greenland MC: McMurdo, Antarctica

Paul Evenson June Determination of the Pitch Angle Distribution Individual station data fitted to an angular distribution of the form f(μ) = c 0 + c 1 exp(b μ), with μ cosine of pitch angle, and c 0, c 1, and b free parameters. The symmetry axis from which pitch angles are measured was also a free parameter.

Paul Evenson June December 2006 Event Animation

Paul Evenson June Neutron Monitor Response Calculated from IceTop Spectrum Good agreement (with understanding of viewing direction) Continuous determination of precise spectrum All information on anisotropy comes from the monitor network

Paul Evenson June 2009 IceTop and PAMELA Credit: M. Casolino

Paul Evenson June 2009 IceTop and PAMELA Credit: M. Casolino

Paul Evenson June 2009 IceTop and PAMELA Credit: M. Casolino

Paul Evenson June 2009 IceTop and PAMELA Credit: M. Casolino

Paul Evenson June IceTop and PAMELA Credit: M. Casolino

Paul Evenson June Towards Precision Spectral Information We are reconfiguring IceTop to provide uniform coverage from 500 to 10,000 Hz Up to 2000 Hz each DOM will generate a rate histogram Above 2000 Hz the SPE discriminators will be used, set to a range of thresholds For larger events this will enable us to go far beyond the simple power spectrum analysis Exact spectral shape is diagnostic of particle acceleration mechanisms.

Paul Evenson June Just Completed: Assemble an IceTop tank in a freezer container in Uppsala Fill with water and freeze Load on Oden Take data on voyage to McMurdo and back

Paul Evenson June Example of a Latitude Survey Left: Course plot with geomagnetic cutoff contours in units of GV Right: Counting rate of two detectors and geomagnetic cutoff as a function of time

Paul Evenson June Determining a Response Function Counting rate of a 3NM64 is plotted against cutoff. To deal with the scatter of the points we fit a “Dorman Function” as indicated. This function has an analytic derivative as shown. This derivative is exactly the response function for this particular detector. In the collaboration involving Uppsala we will derive a whole sequence of response functions for different thresholds, but each will be determined by a method similar to this

Paul Evenson June Preparing the Ice Block

Paul Evenson June (Neutron Monitor Latitude Surveys On Polar Star And Polar Sea)

Paul Evenson June Neutrons on Oden Voyage

Paul Evenson June Summary IceTop, the surface component of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, is an air shower detector aimed primarily at studying PeV and above cosmic rays. In this mode the 160 (planned) detectors are operated in coincidence. Individual detectors are sensitive to the secondary products of particles with energy as low as one GeV, typical of energetic solar particle events. Information on the spectrum of particles at a few GeV can be extracted from IceTop, We are working to get a better calibration of these detectors as part of a collaboration including Uppsala University.