Sensitivity of the IceCube detector to astrophysical sources of high energy muon neutrinos

6533b826fe1ef96bd12847a1

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Sensitivity of the IceCube detector to astrophysical sources of high energy muon neutrinos

George Japaridze I. Taboada P. Miocinovic M. Hellwig R Koch R. M. Gunasingha H. G. Sander R. Paulos R. C. Bay Michael Stamatikos R. Ganugapati T. Neunhöffer Albrecht Karle B. Collin D. F. Cowen Marek Kowalski Christian Spiering J. A. Goodman K. Rawlins K. Schinarakis C. Pérez De Los Heros T. Becka P. Niessen P. B. Price T. O. B. Schmidt I. Liubarsky James Madsen Soebur Razzaque K. Helbing T. Castermans Jodi Cooley A. Biron Elisa Resconi N. Kitamura D. Hubert Kurt Woschnagg Peter Mészáros Paul Evenson S. Schlenstedt M. Kestel R. G. Stokstad C. H. Wiebusch S. Hundertmark S. Tilav K. H. Sulanke C. De Clercq R. Wischnewski A. J. Smith Dmitry Chirkin C. Wiedemann T. Deyoung Jean Gallagher J. I. Lamoureux G. W. Sullivan A. C. Pohl S. Richter Xinhua Bai Ph. Herquet L. Köpke T. Burgess D. Z. Besson R. Morse R. Schwarz E. Blaufuss D. J. Boersma J. Ahrens D. Bertrand K.-h. Becker D. Steele K. Hultqvist J. Cavin R. H. Minor Kael Hanson William Carithers T. J. Sumner H. S. Matis Elisa Bernardini S. Patton Ph. Olbrechts T. Stezelberger Paolo Desiati Francis Halzen R. W. Ellsworth Wolfgang Rhode Hakki ÖGelman H. Kawai H. Leich S. Böser C. P. Mcparland Olga Botner R. Hardtke M. Solarz A. Goldschmidt R. Nahnhauer M. Ribordy T. Messarius S. Yoshida D. Hays W. Chinowsky N. Van Eijndhoven Glenn Spiczak B. Hughey Gerald Przybylski R. Ehrlich T. Hauschildt Adam Bouchta R.-r Wang Allan Hallgren Wolfgang Wagner P. O. Hulth H. Wissing D. Seckel Anna Davour Janet Jacobsen Todor Stanev H. Miyamoto C. Walck Thomas K. Gaisser J. Pretz Y. Minaeva A. W. Jones John N. Bahcall Matthias Leuthold Othmane Bouhali D. R. Nygren P. Steffen Jan Conrad T. Feser Christian Bohm David A. Schneider D. Berley G. C. Hill Heiko Geenen A. R. Fazely

subject

Physics Active galactic nucleus Muon Physics::Instrumentation and Detectors Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Detector Astrophysics (astro-ph)Gamma ray FOS: Physical sciences IceCube; Neutrino astronomy; Neutrino telescope Astronomy and Astrophysics Cosmic ray Astrophysics Astrophysics Neutrino telescope IceCube Neutrino astronomy High Energy Physics::Experiment Neutrino Neutrino astronomy Gamma-ray burst

description

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 observations. After three years of datataking, IceCube will have been able to detect a point source flux of E^2*dN/dE = 7*10^-9 cm^-2s^-1GeV at a 5-sigma significance, or, in the absence of a signal, place a 90% c.l. limit at a level E^2*dN/dE = 2*10^-9 cm^-2s^-1GeV. A diffuse E-2 flux would be detectable at a minimum strength of E^2*dN/dE = 1*10^-8 cm^-2s^-1sr^-1GeV. A gamma-ray burst model following the formulation of Waxman and Bahcall would result in a 5-sigma effect after the observation of 200 bursts in coincidence with satellite observations of the gamma-rays.

year	journal	country	edition	language
2003-05-12

10.1016/j.astropartphys.2003.09.003 http://hdl.handle.net/11577/3318405