| 61. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Constraints on Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic-Ray Sources from a Search for Neutrinos above 10 PeV with IceCube
- 2016
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 117:24
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report constraints on the sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) above 10(9) GeV, based on an analysis of seven years of IceCube data. This analysis efficiently selects very high-energy neutrino-induced events which have deposited energies from 5 x 10(5) GeV to above 10(11) GeV. Two neutrino-induced events with an estimated deposited energy of (2.6 +/- 0.3) x 10(6) GeV, the highest neutrino energy observed so far, and (7.7 +/- 2.0) x 10(5) GeV were detected. The atmospheric background-only hypothesis of detecting these events is rejected at 3.6 sigma. The hypothesis that the observed events are of cosmogenic origin is also rejected at > 99% CL because of the limited deposited energy and the nonobservation of events at higher energy, while their observation is consistent with an astrophysical origin. Our limits on cosmogenic neutrino fluxes disfavor the UHECR sources having a cosmological evolution stronger than the star formation rate, e.g., active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts, assuming proton-dominated UHECRs. Constraints on UHECR sources including mixed and heavy UHECR compositions are obtained for models of neutrino production within UHECR sources. Our limit disfavors a significant part of parameter space for active galactic nuclei and new-born pulsar models. These limits on the ultrahigh-energy neutrino flux models are the most stringent to date.
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| 62. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
First search for dark matter annihilations in the Earth with the IceCube detector
- 2017
-
Ingår i: European Physical Journal C. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1434-6044 .- 1434-6052. ; 77:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of the first IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in the center of the Earth. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), candidates for dark matter, can scatter off nuclei inside the Earth and fall below its escape velocity. Over time the captured WIMPs will be accumulated and may eventually self-annihilate. Among the annihilation products only neutrinos can escape from the center of the Earth. Large-scale neutrino telescopes, such as the cubic kilometer IceCube Neutrino Observatory located at the South Pole, can be used to search for such neutrino fluxes. Data from 327 days of detector livetime during 2011/2012 were analyzed. No excess beyond the expected background from atmospheric neutrinos was detected. The derived upper limits on the annihilation rate of WIMPs in the Earth (Gamma(A) = 1.12 x 10(14) s(-1) for WIMP masses of 50 GeV annihilating into tau leptons) and the resulting muon flux are an order of magnitude stronger than the limits of the last analysis performed with data from IceCube's predecessor AMANDA. The limits can be translated in terms of a spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section. For a WIMP mass of 50GeV this analysis results in the most restrictive limits achieved with IceCube data.
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| 63. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
Observation And Characterization Of A Cosmic Muon Neutrino Flux From The Northern Hemisphere Using Six Years Of Icecube Data
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 833:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The IceCube Collaboration has previously discovered a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux using neutrino events with interaction vertices contained within the instrumented volume of the IceCube detector. We present a complementary measurement using charged current muon neutrino events where the interaction vertex can be outside this volume. As a consequence of the large muon range the effective area is significantly larger but the field of view is restricted to the Northern Hemisphere. IceCube data from 2009 through 2015 have been analyzed using a likelihood approach based on the reconstructed muon energy and zenith angle. At the highest neutrino energies between 194 TeV and 7.8 PeV a significant astrophysical contribution is observed, excluding a purely atmospheric origin of these events at 5.6 sigma significance. The data are well described by an isotropic, unbroken power-law flux with a normalization at 100 TeV neutrino energy of (0.90(-0.27)(+0.30)) x 10(-18) GeV-1 cm(-2) s(-1) sr(-1) and a hard spectral index of gamma = 2.13 +/- 0.13. The observed spectrum is harder in comparison to previous IceCube analyses with lower energy thresholds which may indicate a break in the astrophysical neutrino spectrum of unknown origin. The highest-energy event observed has a reconstructed muon energy of (4.5 +/- 1.2) PeV which implies a probability of less than 0.005% for this event to be of atmospheric origin. Analyzing the arrival directions of all events with reconstructed muon energies above 200 TeV no correlation with known gamma-ray sources was found. Using the high statistics of atmospheric neutrinos we report the current best constraints on a prompt atmospheric muon neutrino flux originating from charmed meson decays which is below 1.06 in units of the flux normalization of the model in Enberg et al.
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| 64. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Search For Sources Of High-Energy Neutrons With Four Years Of Data From The Icetop Detector
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 830:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- IceTop is an air-shower array located on the Antarctic ice sheet at the geographic South Pole. IceTop can detect an astrophysical flux of neutrons from Galactic sources as an excess of cosmic-ray air showers arriving from the source direction. Neutrons are undeflected by the Galactic magnetic field and can typically travel 10 (E/PeV) pc before decay. Two searches are performed using 4 yr of the IceTop data set to look for a statistically significant excess of events with energies above 10 PeV (10(16) eV) arriving within a small solid angle. The all-sky search method covers from -90 degrees to approximately -50 degrees in declination. No significant excess is found. A targeted search is also performed, looking for significant correlation with candidate sources in different target sets. This search uses a higher-energy cut (100 PeV) since most target objects lie beyond 1 kpc. The target sets include pulsars with confirmed TeV energy photon fluxes and high-mass X-ray binaries. No significant correlation is found for any target set. Flux upper limits are determined for both searches, which can constrain Galactic neutron sources and production scenarios.
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| 65. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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The Contribution Of Fermi-2Lac Blazars To Diffuse Tev-Pev Neutrino Flux
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 835:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The recent discovery of a diffuse cosmic neutrino flux extending up to PeV energies raises the question of which astrophysical sources generate this signal. Blazars are one class of extragalactic sources which may produce such high-energy neutrinos. We present a likelihood analysis searching for cumulative neutrino emission from blazars in the 2nd Fermi-LAT AGN catalog (2LAC) using IceCube neutrino data set 2009-12, which was optimized for the detection of individual sources. In contrast to those in previous searches with IceCube, the populations investigated contain up to hundreds of sources, the largest one being the entire blazar sample in the 2LAC catalog. No significant excess is observed, and upper limits for the cumulative flux from these populations are obtained. These constrain the maximum contribution of 2LAC blazars to the observed astrophysical neutrino flux to 27% or less between around 10 TeV and 2 PeV, assuming the equipartition of flavors on Earth and a single power-law spectrum with a spectral index of -2.5. We can still exclude the fact that 2LAC blazars (and their subpopulations) emit more than 50% of the observed neutrinos up to a spectral index as hard as -2.2 in the same energy range. Our result takes into account the fact that the neutrino source count distribution is unknown, and it does not assume strict proportionality of the neutrino flux to the measured 2LAC gamma-ray signal for each source. Additionally, we constrain recent models for neutrino emission by blazars.
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| 66. |
- Adare, A., et al.
(författare)
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Spectra and ratios of identified particles in Au plus Au and d plus Au collisions at root s(NN)=200 GeV
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review C (Nuclear Physics). - 0556-2813. ; 88:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The transverse momentum (p(T)) spectra and ratios of identified charged hadrons (pi(+/-), K-+/-, p, (p) over bar) produced in root s(NN) = 200 GeV Au + Au and d + Au collisions are reported in five different centrality classes for each collision species. The measurements of pions and protons are reported up to p(T) = 6 GeV/c (5 GeV/c), and the measurements of kaons are reported up to p(T) = 4 GeV/c (3.5 GeV/c) in Au + Au (d + Au) collisions. In the intermediate p(T) region, between 2 and 5 GeV/c, a significant enhancement of baryon-to-meson ratios compared to those measured in p + p collisions is observed. This enhancement is present in both Au + Au and d + Au collisions and increases as the collisions become more central. We compare a class of peripheral Au + Au collisions with a class of central d + Au collisions which have a comparable number of participating nucleons and binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. The p(T)-dependent particle ratios for these classes display a remarkable similarity, which is then discussed.
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| 67. |
- Adler, S. S., et al.
(författare)
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Transverse-energy distributions at midrapidity in p plus p, d plus Au, and Au plus Au collisions at root s(NN)=62.4-200 GeV and implications for particle-production models
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Physical Review C (Nuclear Physics). - 0556-2813. ; 89:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Measurements of the midrapidity transverse-energy distribution, dE(T)/d eta, are presented for p + p, d+Au, and Au+Au collisions atv root s(NN) = 200 GeV and additionally for Au+Au collisions atv root s(NN) = 62.4 and 130 GeV. The dE(T)/d eta distributions are first compared with the number of nucleon participants N-part, number of binary collisions N-coll, and number of constituent-quark participants N-qp calculated from a Glauber model based on the nuclear geometry. For Au+Au, < dE(T)/d eta >/N-part increases with N-part, while < dE(T)/d eta >/N-qp is approximately constant for all three energies. This indicates that the two-component ansatz, dE(T)/d eta alpha (1 - x)N-part/2 + xN(coll), which was used to represent E-T distributions, is simply a proxy for N-qp, and that the N-coll term does not represent a hard-scattering component in E-T distributions. The dE(T)/d eta distributions of Au+Au and d+Au are then calculated from the measured p + p E-T distribution using two models that both reproduce the Au+Au data. However, while the number-of-constituent-quark-participant model agrees well with the d+Au data, the additive-quark model does not.
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| 68. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Lowering Icecube'S Energy Threshold For Point Source Searches In The Southern Sky
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - 2041-8205 .- 2041-8213. ; 824:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Observation of a point source of astrophysical neutrinos would be a "smoking gun" signature of a cosmic-ray accelerator. While IceCube has recently discovered a diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos, no localized point source has been observed. Previous IceCube searches for point sources in the southern sky were restricted by either an energy threshold above a few hundred TeV or poor neutrino angular resolution. Here we present a search for southern sky point sources with greatly improved sensitivities to neutrinos with energies below 100 TeV. By selecting charged-current nu(mu) interacting inside the detector, we reduce the atmospheric background while retaining efficiency for astrophysical neutrino-induced events reconstructed with sub-degree angular resolution. The new event sample covers three years of detector data and leads to a factor of 10 improvement in sensitivity to point sources emitting below 100 TeV in the southern sky. No statistically significant evidence of point sources was found, and upper limits are set on neutrino emission from individual sources. A posteriori analysis of the highest-energy (similar to 100 TeV) starting event in the sample found that this event alone represents a 2.8 sigma deviation from the hypothesis that the data consists only of atmospheric background.
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| 69. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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Search for 10-1000 GeV Neutrinos from Gamma-Ray Bursts with IceCube
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : Institute of Physics (IOP). - 1538-4357 .- 0004-637X. ; 964:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of a search for 10-1000 GeV neutrinos from 2268 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) over 8 yr of IceCube-DeepCore data. This work probes burst physics below the photosphere where electromagnetic radiation cannot escape. Neutrinos of tens of giga electronvolts are predicted in sub-photospheric collision of free-streaming neutrons with bulk-jet protons. In a first analysis, we searched for the most significant neutrino-GRB coincidence using six overlapping time windows centered on the prompt phase of each GRB. In a second analysis, we conducted a search for a group of GRBs, each individually too weak to be detectable, but potentially significant when combined. No evidence of neutrino emission is found for either analysis. The most significant neutrino coincidence is for Fermi-GBM GRB bn 140807500, with a p-value of 0.097 corrected for all trials. The binomial test used to search for a group of GRBs had a p-value of 0.65 after all trial corrections. The binomial test found a group consisting only of GRB bn 140807500 and no additional GRBs. The neutrino limits of this work complement those obtained by IceCube at tera electronvolt to peta electronvolt energies. We compare our findings for the large set of GRBs as well as GRB 221009A to the sub-photospheric neutron-proton collision model and find that GRB 221009A provides the most constraining limit on baryon loading. For a jet Lorentz factor of 300 (800), the baryon loading on GRB 221009A is lower than 3.85 (2.13) at a 90% confidence level.
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| 70. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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Search for decoherence from quantum gravity with atmospheric neutrinos
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Nature Physics. - 1745-2481 .- 1745-2473. ; 20:6, s. 913-920
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neutrino oscillations at the highest energies and longest baselines can be used to study the structure of spacetime and test the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. If the metric of spacetime has a quantum mechanical description, its fluctuations at the Planck scale are expected to introduce non-unitary effects that are inconsistent with the standard unitary time evolution of quantum mechanics. Neutrinos interacting with such fluctuations would lose their quantum coherence, deviating from the expected oscillatory flavour composition at long distances and high energies. Here we use atmospheric neutrinos detected by the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory in the energy range of 0.5-10.0 TeV to search for coherence loss in neutrino propagation. We find no evidence of anomalous neutrino decoherence and determine limits on neutrino-quantum gravity interactions. The constraint on the effective decoherence strength parameter within an energy-independent decoherence model improves on previous limits by a factor of 30. For decoherence effects scaling as E2, our limits are advanced by more than six orders of magnitude beyond past measurements compared with the state of the art. Interactions of atmospheric neutrinos with quantum-gravity-induced fluctuations of the metric of spacetime would lead to decoherence. The IceCube Collaboration constrains such interactions with atmospheric neutrinos.
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