IceCube-Gen2 is a proposed extension to the existing IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. It will have three main components: an optical array instrumenting eight times the in-ice volume of the present detector with 120 optical strings made up of the digital optical modules (DOMs), a comparatively larger surface array (having 130 hybrid stations) on top of the optical array and a radio array for ultra-high-energy neutrinos. IceCube/IceCube-Gen2 detects cosmic rays indirectly via the observation of particle cascades in the Earth’s atmosphere. Here we study the sensitivity of this future detector to the composition of primary cosmic rays, using CORSIKA Monte Carlo simulations of air showers initiated by H, He, O, and Fe primaries while investigating a set of variables for both, the scintillators of the surface array and the full optical array, to identify those which have the highest mass discrimination power. Among the various variables studied: the slope of lateral distribution function (fitting the scintillator signal), the charge of in-ice pulses, DOM hits, in-ice muons and the energy loss of in-ice muons (proxy variable for in-ice muons), is found to have the highest discrimination power. Preliminary results of the energy loss reconstruction are reported.
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