Improving the muon track reconstruction of IceCube and IceCube-Gen2. (arXiv:1905.09612v1 [astro-ph.IM])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bradascio_F/0/1/0/all/0/1">Federica Bradascio</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Glusenkamp_T/0/1/0/all/0/1">Thorsten Gl&#xfc;senkamp</a>

IceCube is a cubic-kilometer Cherenkov telescope operating at the South Pole.
Its goal is to detect astrophysical neutrinos and identify their sources.
High-energy muon neutrinos are identified through the secondary muons produced
via charge current interactions with the ice. The present best-performing
directional reconstruction of the muon track is a maximum likelihood method
which uses the arrival time distribution of Cherenkov photons registered by the
experiment’s photomultipliers. Known systematic shortcomings of this method are
to assume continuous energy loss along the muon track, and to neglect
photomultiplier-related effects such as prepulses and afterpulses. This work
discusses an improvement of about 20% to the muon angular resolution of IceCube
and its planned extension, IceCube-Gen2. In the reconstruction scheme presented
here, the expected arrival time distribution is now parametrized by a
predetermined stochastic muon energy loss pattern. The inclusion of pre- and
afterpulses modelling in the PDF has also been studied, but no noticeable
improvement was found, in particular in comparison to the modification of the
energy loss profile.

IceCube is a cubic-kilometer Cherenkov telescope operating at the South Pole.
Its goal is to detect astrophysical neutrinos and identify their sources.
High-energy muon neutrinos are identified through the secondary muons produced
via charge current interactions with the ice. The present best-performing
directional reconstruction of the muon track is a maximum likelihood method
which uses the arrival time distribution of Cherenkov photons registered by the
experiment’s photomultipliers. Known systematic shortcomings of this method are
to assume continuous energy loss along the muon track, and to neglect
photomultiplier-related effects such as prepulses and afterpulses. This work
discusses an improvement of about 20% to the muon angular resolution of IceCube
and its planned extension, IceCube-Gen2. In the reconstruction scheme presented
here, the expected arrival time distribution is now parametrized by a
predetermined stochastic muon energy loss pattern. The inclusion of pre- and
afterpulses modelling in the PDF has also been studied, but no noticeable
improvement was found, in particular in comparison to the modification of the
energy loss profile.

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