Search results for "Neutrino astronomy"
showing 10 items of 85 documents
The IceCube realtime alert system
2016
Following the detection of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos in 2013, their origin is still unknown. Aiming for the identification of an electromagnetic counterpart of a rapidly fading source, we have implemented a realtime analysis framework for the IceCube neutrino observatory. Several analyses selecting neutrinos of astrophysical origin are now operating in realtime at the detector site in Antarctica and are producing alerts to the community to enable rapid follow-up observations. The goal of these observations is to locate the astrophysical objects responsible for these neutrino signals. This paper highlights the infrastructure in place both at the South Pole detector site and at IceC…
High energy neutrino telescopes in the Northern Hemisphere
2012
We review the status and results of the high energy neutrino telescopes in the Northern Hemisphere, namely ANTARES and Baikal (NT200+).
Production of keV sterile neutrinos in supernovae: New constraints and gamma-ray observables
2019
We study the production of sterile neutrinos in supernovae, focusing in particular on the keV--MeV mass range, which is the most interesting range if sterile neutrinos are to account for the dark matter in the Universe. Focusing on the simplest scenario in which sterile neutrinos mixes only with muon or tau neutrino, we argue that the production of keV--MeV sterile neutrinos can be strongly enhanced by a Mikheyev--Smirnov--Wolfenstein (MSW) resonance, so that a substantial flux is expected to emerge from a supernova, even if vacuum mixing angles between active and sterile neutrinos are tiny. Using energetics arguments, this yields limits on the sterile neutrino parameter space that reach do…
Probing decaying heavy dark matter with the 4-year IceCube HESE data
2017
After the first four years of data taking, the IceCube neutrino telescope has observed 54 high-energy starting events (HESE) with deposited energies between 20 TeV and 2 PeV. The background from atmospheric muons and neutrinos is expected to be of about 20 events, all below 100 TeV, thus pointing towards the astrophysical origin of about 8 events per year in that data set. However, their precise origin remains unknown. Here, we perform a detailed analysis of this event sample (considering simultaneously the energy, hemisphere and topology of the events) by assuming two contributions for the signal events: an isotropic power-law flux and a flux from decaying heavy dark matter. We fit the mas…
Follow-up of Astrophysical Transients in Real Time with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
2020
In multi-messenger astronomy, rapid investigation of interesting transients is imperative. As an observatory with a 4$\pi$ steradian field of view and $\sim$99\% uptime, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a unique facility to follow up transients, and to provide valuable insight for other observatories and inform their observing decisions. Since 2016, IceCube has been using low-latency data to rapidly respond to interesting astrophysical events reported by the multi-messenger observational community. Here, we describe the pipeline used to perform these follow up analyses and provide a summary of the 58 analyses performed as of July 2020. We find no significant signal in the first 58 analys…
Solar neutrino detectors as sterile neutrino hunters
2016
International audience; The large size and the very low radioactive background of solar neutrino detectors such as Borexino at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy offer a unique opportunity to probe the existence of neutrino oscillations into new sterile components by means of carefully designed and well calibrated anti-neutrino and neutrino artificial sources. In this paper we briefly summarise the key elements of the SOX experiment, a program for the search of sterile neutrinos (and other short distance effects) by means of a (144)Ce-(144)Pr anti-neutrino source and, possibly in the medium term future, with a (51)Cr neutrino source.
Low-energy Neutrino Astronomy in LENA
2015
LENA (Low Energy Neutrino Astronomy) is a proposed next-generation neutrino detector based on 50 kilotons of liquid scintillator. The low detection threshold, good energy resolution and excellent background rejection inherent to the liquid-scintillator detectors make LENA a versatile observatory for low-energy neutrinos from astrophysical and terrestrial sources. In the framework of the European LAGUNA-LBNO design study, LENA is also considered as far detector for a very-long baseline neutrino beam from CERN to Pyhasalmi ¨ (Finland). The present contribution gives an overview LENA’s broad research program, highlighting the unique capabilities of liquid scintillator for the detection of low-…
The next-generation liquid-scintillator neutrino observatory LENA
2012
We propose the liquid-scintillator detector LENA (Low Energy Neutrino Astronomy) as a next-generation neutrino observatory on the scale of 50 kt. The outstanding successes of the Borexino and KamLAND experiments demonstrate the large potential of liquid-scintillator detectors in low-energy neutrino physics. LENA's physics objectives comprise the observation of astrophysical and terrestrial neutrino sources as well as the investigation of neutrino oscillations. In the GeV energy range, the search for proton decay and long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments complement the low-energy program. Based on the considerable expertise present in European and international research groups, the …
Search for dark matter from the Galactic halo with the IceCube neutrino telescope
2011
Self-annihilating or decaying dark matter in the Galactic halo might produce high energy neutrinos detectable with neutrino telescopes. We have conducted a search for such a signal using 276 days of data from the IceCube 22-string configuration detector acquired during 2007 and 2008. The effect of halo model choice in the extracted limit is reduced by performing a search that considers the outer halo region and not the Galactic Center. We constrain any large-scale neutrino anisotropy and are able to set a limit on the dark matter self-annihilation cross section of ⟨σAv⟩≃10-22 cm3 s-1 for weakly interacting massive particle masses above 1 TeV, assuming a monochromatic neutrino line spectrum.
Determining neutrino oscillation parameters from atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance with three years of IceCube DeepCore data
2014
We present a measurement of neutrino oscillations via atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance with three years of data of the completed IceCube neutrino detector. DeepCore, a region of denser instrumentation, enables the detection and reconstruction of atmospheric muon neutrinos between 10 GeV and 100 GeV, where a strong disappearance signal is expected. The detector volume surrounding DeepCore is used as a veto region to suppress the atmospheric muon background. Neutrino events are selected where the detected Cherenkov photons of the secondary particles minimally scatter, and the neutrino energy and arrival direction are reconstructed. Both variables are used to obtain the neutrino oscilla…