Sensitivity Study of IceCube-Gen2 Surface Array for Cosmic-Ray Anisotropy

One of the most significant unresolved questions in cosmic-ray (CR) physics pertains to the energy at which the transition from Galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays occurs, as CRs are deflected by the Galactic magnetic fields, which result in their unclear origins. However, constraints can be obtained by studying the large-scale anisotropy in the CR arrival directions. In the past few decades, experiments have provided long-term and significant observations of a subtle sidereal anisotropy with the dipole magnitude ranging from 10−4 to 10−2, and across a wide energy range from 1 TeV to 100 EeV [1–12]. However, statistically significant measurements of the projected dipole amplitude are missing in the energy range between 10 PeV and 1 EeV [2, 11, 13]. IceCube-Gen2 [14], and its surface array (comprised of stations of elevated scintillation and radio detectors) will be capable of filling a portion of the energy gap between 1 PeV and approximately 100 PeV. Here, we present the air-shower reconstruction efficiency for the scintillators of the planned IceCube-Gen2 surface array using CORSIKA simulations [15], describe the Monte Carlo studies of the CR arrival directions, and show the sensitivity of the surface array to large-scale anisotropy of the CRs [16].