Heavy Ion Tea
| Tuesday, March 17, 2009 | 3:30 pm, Pers Hall |
TeV Muons from Cosmic-ray Air Showers
In this talk, after giving an overview of cosmic-ray physics, I will discuss high-energy
(above 1 PeV) cosmic-ray interactions and muon production. After reviewing muon production
measurements and compositional inferences from current experiments, I will discuss our plans
to use IceCube to study high p_T muons in air showers, brining pQCD to composition studies.
Since ground-based detectors are most sensitive to the far forward region, these cosmic-ray
measurements also have the potential to complement RHIC studies of ion collisions
Spencer Klein (LBNL)
Abstract:
Cosmic rays with energies up to 3*10^{20} eV have been observed. Despite 100 years of effort,
we still do not know the source of these cosmic-rays. At energies above 10^{15} eV, we don't
even know if they are protons or heavier nuclei, and there are many uncertainties about their
interactions. One observable for cosmic-ray air showers is the number and energy spectrum of
muons produced in the early interactions; these muons are sensitive to the nuclear composition
of the incident particles.