LAUSR

Abstract The IceTop detector is the surface component of the IceCube Observatory: an array of 81 ‘‘stations’’ of two frozen water tanks. Each tank contains two photosensors, and is sensitive to both the electromagnetic component of cosmic ray air showers as well as surface muons. While the electromagnetic component dominates in tanks close to the shower core, the signals from muons become more pronounced at large distances and at high zenith angles. Additionally, the deeply-buried in-ice component of IceCube can measure the high-energy penetrating muons from air showers. Together, these detectors can study the distributions of these air shower muons, and by comparing to the predictions of various hadronic interaction models, use them to constrain these models.