0000000000141800
AUTHOR
M. W.e. Smith
Measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum with IceTop-73
Physical review / D 88(4), 042004 (2013). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.88.042004
Probing the origin of cosmic-rays with extremely high energy neutrinos using the IceCube Observatory
We have searched for extremely high energy neutrinos using data taken with the IceCube detector between May 2010 and May 2012. Two neutrino induced particle shower events with energies around 1 PeV were observed, as reported previously. In this work, we investigate whether these events could originate from cosmogenic neutrinos produced in the interactions of ultra-high energy cosmic-rays with ambient photons while propagating through intergalactic space. Exploiting IceCube's large exposure for extremely high energy neutrinos and the lack of observed events above 100 PeV, we can rule out the corresponding models at more than 90% confidence level. The model independent quasi-differential 90% …
Direct evidence for neutrino flavor transformation from neutral-current interactions in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
Observations of neutral current neutrino interactions on deuterium in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory are reported. Using the neutral current, elastic scattering, and charged current reactions and assuming the standard 8B shape, the electron-neutrino component of the 8B solar flux is 1.76 +/-0.05(stat.)+/-0.09(syst.) x10^6/(cm^2 s), for a kinetic energy threshold of 5 MeV. The non-electron neutrino component is 3.41+/-0.45(stat.)+0.48,-0.45(syst.) x10^6/(cm^2 s), 5.3 standard deviations greater than zero, providing strong evidence for solar electron neutrino flavor transformation. The total flux measured with the NC reaction is 5.09 +0.44,-0.43(stat.)+0.46,-0.43(syst.)x10^6/(cm^2 s), consi…
Observation of the cosmic-ray shadow of the Moon with IceCube
We report on the observation of a significant deficit of cosmic rays from the direction of the Moon with the IceCube detector. The study of this "Moon shadow" is used to characterize the angular resolution and absolute pointing capabilities of the detector. The detection is based on data taken in two periods before the completion of the detector: between April 2008 and May 2009, when IceCube operated in a partial configuration with 40 detector strings deployed in the South Pole ice, and between May 2009 and May 2010 when the detector operated with 59 strings. Using two independent analysis methods, the Moon shadow has been observed to high significance (> 6 sigma) in both detector config…
Search for neutrino-induced particle showers with IceCube-40
We report on the search for neutrino-induced particle-showers, so-called cascades, in the IceCube-40 detector. The data for this search was collected between April 2008 and May 2009 when the first 40 IceCube strings were deployed and operational. Three complementary searches were performed, each optimized for different energy regimes. The analysis with the lowest energy threshold (2 TeV) targeted atmospheric neutrinos. A total of 67 events were found, consistent with the expectation of 41 atmospheric muons and 30 atmospheric neutrino events. The two other analyses targeted a harder, astrophysical neutrino flux. The analysis with an intermediate threshold of 25 TeV lead to the observation of…
Measurement of day and night neutrino energy spectra at SNO and constraints on neutrino mixing parameters
The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) has measured day and night solar neutrino energy spectra and rates. For charged current events, assuming an undistorted $^8$B spectrum, the night minus day rate is $14.0% \pm 6.3% ^{+1.5}_{-1.4}%$ of the average rate. If the total flux of active neutrinos is additionally constrained to have no asymmetry, the $\nu_e$ asymmetry is found to be $7.0% \pm 4.9% ^{+1.3}_{-1.2}%$. A global solar neutrino analysis in terms of matter-enhanced oscillations of two active flavors strongly favors the Large Mixing Angle (LMA) solution.
Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations with IceCube
We present the first statistically significant detection of neutrino oscillations in the high-energy regime ($>$ 20 GeV) from an analysis of IceCube Neutrino Observatory data collected in 2010-2011. This measurement is made possible by the low energy threshold of the DeepCore detector ($\sim 20$ GeV) and benefits from the use of the IceCube detector as a veto against cosmic ray-induced muon background. The oscillation signal was detected within a low-energy muon neutrino sample (20 -- 100 GeV) extracted from data collected by DeepCore. A high-energy muon neutrino sample (100 GeV -- 10 TeV) was extracted from IceCube data to constrain systematic uncertainties. Disappearance of low-energy upw…
Search for a diffuse flux of astrophysical muon neutrinos with the IceCube 59-string configuration
A search for high-energy neutrinos was performed using data collected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory from May 2009 to May 2010, when the array was running in its 59-string configuration. The data sample was optimized to contain muon neutrino induced events with a background contamination of atmospheric muons of less than 1%. These data, which are dominated by atmospheric neutrinos, are analyzed with a global likelihood fit to search for possible contributions of prompt atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos, neither of which have yet been identified. Such signals are expected to follow a harder energy spectrum than conventional atmospheric neutrinos. In addition, the zenith angle dist…
South Pole glacial climate reconstruction from multi-borehole laser particulate stratigraphy
AbstractThe IceCube Neutrino Observatory and its prototype, AMANDA, were built in South Pole ice, using powerful hot-water drills to cleanly bore>100 holes to depths up to 2500 m. The construction of these particle physics detectors provided a unique opportunity to examine the deep ice sheet using a variety of novel techniques. We made high-resolution particulate profiles with a laser dust logger in eight of the boreholes during detector commissioning between 2004 and 2010. The South Pole laser logs are among the most clearly resolved measurements of Antarctic dust strata during the last glacial period and can be used to reconstruct paleoclimate records in exceptional detail. Here we use…
Improvement in fast particle track reconstruction with robust statistics
The IceCube project has transformed one cubic kilometer of deep natural Antarctic ice into a Cherenkov detector. Muon neutrinos are detected and their direction inferred by mapping the light produced by the secondary muon track inside the volume instrumented with photomultipliers. Reconstructing the muon track from the observed light is challenging due to noise, light scattering in the ice medium, and the possibility of simultaneously having multiple muons inside the detector, resulting from the large flux of cosmic ray muons. This manuscript describes work on two problems: (1) the track reconstruction problem, in which, given a set of observations, the goal is to recover the track of a muo…
IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters
Physical review / D 88(12), 122001 (2013). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.88.122001