Muons with High Transverse Momentum in IceCube

Muons with a large transverse momentum ($p_{T}$) are produced in cosmic ray air showers via semileptonic decays of heavy quarks and the decay of high $p_{T}$ kaons and pions. These high $p_{T}$ muons will have a large lateral separation from the shower core. IceCube, a neutrino telescope consisting of a three-dimensional array of photodetectors buried in the ice of the South Pole and a surface air shower array, is well suited for the detection of high $p_{T}$ muons. The surface shower array can determine the energy, location and direction of the cosmic ray air shower while the in- ice array can do the same for the high $p_{T}$ muon. This makes it possible to measure the decoherence function (lateral separation spectrum) at distances greater than $\sim$150 meters. The muon $p_{T}$ can be determined from the muon energy (measured by dE/dx) and the lateral separation. The high $p_{T}$ muon spectrum may be calculated in a perturbative QCD framework; this spectrum is sensitive to the cosmic-ray composition.