0000000000236997
AUTHOR
J. I. Lamoureux
Limits to the muon flux from WIMP annihilation in the center of the Earth with the AMANDA detector
A search for nearly vertical up-going muon-neutrinos from neutralino annihilations in the center of the Earth has been performed with the AMANDA-B10 neutrino detector. The data sample collected in 130.1 days of live-time in 1997, ~10^9 events, has been analyzed for this search. No excess over the expected atmospheric neutrino background is oberved. An upper limit at 90% confidence level on the annihilation rate of neutralinos in the center of the Earth is obtained as a function of the neutralino mass in the range 100 GeV-5000 GeV, as well as the corresponding muon flux limit.
Calibration and survey of AMANDA with the SPASE detectors
We report on the analysis of air showers observed in coincidence by the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino detector array (AMANDA-B10) and the South Pole Air Shower Experiment (SPASE-1 and SPASE-2). We discuss the use of coincident events for calibration and survey of the deep AMANDA detector as well as the response of AMANDA to muon bundles. This analysis uses data taken during 1997 when both SPASE-1 and SPASE-2 were in operation to provide a stereo view of AMANDA. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Physics results from the Amanda neutrino detector
In the winter season of 2000, the AMANDA (Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array) detector was completed to its final state. We report on major physics results obtained from the AMANDA-B10 detector, as well as initial results of the full AMANDA-II detector.
Sensitivity of the IceCube detector to astrophysical sources of high energy muon neutrinos
We present the results of a Monte-Carlo study of the sensitivity of the planned IceCube detector to predicted fluxes of muon neutrinos at TeV to PeV energies. A complete simulation of the detector and data analysis is used to study the detector's capability to search for muon neutrinos from sources such as active galaxies and gamma-ray bursts. We study the effective area and the angular resolution of the detector as a function of muon energy and angle of incidence. We present detailed calculations of the sensitivity of the detector to both diffuse and pointlike neutrino emissions, including an assessment of the sensitivity to neutrinos detected in coincidence with gamma-ray burst observatio…
Measurement of the cosmic ray composition at the knee with the SPASE-2/AMANDA-B10 detectors
The mass composition of high-energy cosmic rays at energies above 1015 eV can provide crucial information for the understanding of their origin. Air showers were measured simultaneously with the SPASE-2 air shower array and the AMANDA-B10 Cherenkov telescope at the South Pole. This combination has the advantage to sample almost all high-energy shower muons and is thus a new approach to the determination of the cosmic ray composition. The change in the cosmic ray mass composition was measured versus existing data from direct measurements at low energies. Our data show an increase of the mean log atomic mass 〈lnA〉 by about 0.8 between 500 TeV and 5 PeV. This trend of an increasing mass throug…
Observation of high energy atmospheric neutrinos with the Antarctic muon and neutrino detector array
The Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) began collecting data with ten strings in 1997. Results from the first year of operation are presented. Neutrinos coming through the Earth from the Northern Hemisphere are identified by secondary muons moving upward through the array. Cosmic rays in the atmosphere generate a background of downward moving muons, which are about 10^6 times more abundant than the upward moving muons. Over 130 days of exposure, we observed a total of about 300 neutrino events. In the same period, a background of 1.05*10^9 cosmic ray muon events was recorded. The observed neutrino flux is consistent with atmospheric neutrino predictions. Monte Carlo simulat…
Status of the neutrino telescope AMANDA: Monopoles and WIMPs
The neutrino telescope AMANDA has been set up at the geographical South Pole as first step to a neutrino telescope of the scale of one cubic kilometer, which is the canonical size for a detector sensitive to neutrinos from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) and Topological Defects (TD). The location and depth in which the detector is installed is given by the requirement to detect neutrinos by the Cherenkov light produced by their reaction products and to keep the background due to atmospheric muons as small as possible. However, a detector optimized for this purpose is also capable to detect the bright Cherenkov light from relativistic Monopoles and neutrino signals from …
IceCube: A multipurpose neutrino telescope
IceCube is a new high-energy neutrino telescope which will be coming online in the near future. IceCube will be capable of measuring fluxes of all three flavors of neutrino, and its peak neutrino energy sensitivity will be in the TeV–PeV range. Here, after a brief description of the detector, we describe its anticipated performance with a selection of physics topics: supernovae, extraterrestrial diffuse and point sources of neutrinos, gamma-ray bursts, neutrinos from WIMP annihilation, and cosmic ray composition.
Muon track reconstruction and data selection techniques in AMANDA
The Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) is a high-energy neutrino telescope operating at the geographic South Pole. It is a lattice of photo-multiplier tubes buried deep in the polar ice between 1500m and 2000m. The primary goal of this detector is to discover astrophysical sources of high energy neutrinos. A high-energy muon neutrino coming through the earth from the Northern Hemisphere can be identified by the secondary muon moving upward through the detector. The muon tracks are reconstructed with a maximum likelihood method. It models the arrival times and amplitudes of Cherenkov photons registered by the photo-multipliers. This paper describes the different methods of r…
Direct measurement of the W boson width
We present a direct measurement of the width of the W boson using the shape of the transverse mass distribution of W->enu candidates selected in 1 fb-1 of data collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. We use the same methods and data sample that were used for our recently published W boson mass measurement, except for the modeling of the recoil, which is done with a new method based on a recoil library. Our result, 2.028 +- 0.072 GeV, is in agreement with the predictions of the standard model.
Status of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
Abstract The IceCube neutrino telescope, to be constructed near the Antarctic South Pole, represents the next generation of neutrino telescope. Its large 1 km3 size will make it uniquely sensitive to the detection of neutrinos from astrophysical sources. The current design of the detector is presented. The basic performance of the detector and its ability to search for neutrinos from various astrophysical sources has been studied using detailed simulations and is discussed.
Search for Supernova Neutrino-Bursts with the AMANDA Detector
The core collapse of a massive star in the Milky Way will produce a neutrino burst, intense enough to be detected by existing underground detectors. The AMANDA neutrino telescope located deep in the South Pole ice can detect MeV neutrinos by a collective rate increase in all photo-multipliers on top of dark noise. The main source of light comes from positrons produced in the CC-reaction of anti-electron neutrinos on free protons $\antinue + p \to e^+ + n$. This paper describes the first supernova search performed on the full sets of data taken during 1997 and 1998 (215 days of live time) with 302 of the detector's optical modules. No candidate events resulted from this search. The performan…