Studying the cosmic-ray shadows of the sun and the moon with the IceCube neutrino telescope

Cosmic rays are energetic charged particles from outer space that continuously impinge on Earth from all directions. As cosmic rays are blocked by the Sun and the Moon, a deficit in the number of cosmic rays is observed at Earth from the direction of these celestial bodies. The study of these cosmic-ray shadows has been traditionally used to characterize the angular resolution and absolute pointing of cosmic-ray detectors. We report on a five-year observation of the cosmic-ray Moon and Sun shadows detected with different configurations of the IceCube neutrino telescope, located at the South Pole. The cosmic-ray Moon shadow was observed with high statistical significance (> 6σ) in previous analyses of IceCube data, before the detector completion in December 2010. We present first results from the Sun and Moon shadow analyses with data from the completed detector. A dependence of the Sun shadow on solar activity is expected as particles propagating in the Sun's vicinity are influenced by its magnetic field. This opens the possibility for future analyses to probe different coronal magnetic field models.