| 1. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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Background studies for acoustic neutrino detection at the South Pole
- 2012
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Ingår i: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 35:6, s. 312-324
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The detection of acoustic signals from ultra-high energy neutrino interactions is a promising method to measure the flux of cosmogenic neutrinos expected on Earth. The energy threshold for this process depends strongly on the absolute noise level in the target material. The South Pole Acoustic Test Setup (SPATS), deployed in the upper part of four boreholes of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, has monitored the noise in Antarctic ice at the geographic South Pole for more than two years down to 500 m depth. The noise is very stable and Gaussian distributed. Lacking an in situ calibration up to now, laboratory measurements have been used to estimate the absolute noise level in the 10-50 kHz frequency range to be smaller than 20 mPa. Using a threshold trigger, sensors of the South Pole Acoustic Test Setup registered acoustic events in the IceCube detector volume and its vicinity. Acoustic signals from refreezing IceCube holes and from anthropogenic sources have been used to test the localization of acoustic events. An upper limit on the neutrino flux at energies E-v>10(11) GeV is derived from acoustic data taken over eight months. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Measurement of the Atmospheric nu(e) Flux in IceCube
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 110:15, s. 151105-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report the first measurement of the atmospheric electron neutrino flux in the energy range between approximately 80 GeV and 6 TeV, using data recorded during the first year of operation of IceCube's DeepCore low-energy extension. Techniques to identify neutrinos interacting within the DeepCore volume and veto muons originating outside the detector are demonstrated. A sample of 1029 events is observed in 281 days of data, of which 496 +/- 66(stat) +/- 88(syst) are estimated to be cascade events, including both electron neutrino and neutral current events. The rest of the sample includes residual backgrounds due to atmospheric muons and charged current interactions of atmospheric muon neutrinos. The flux of the atmospheric electron neutrinos is consistent with models of atmospheric neutrinos in this energy range. This constitutes the first observation of electron neutrinos and neutral current interactions in a very large volume neutrino telescope optimized for the TeV energy range.
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| 3. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Search for Dark Matter Annihilations in the Sun with the 79-String IceCube Detector
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 110:13, s. 131302-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We have performed a search for muon neutrinos from dark matter annihilation in the center of the Sun with the 79-string configuration of the IceCube neutrino telescope. For the first time, the DeepCore subarray is included in the analysis, lowering the energy threshold and extending the search to the austral summer. The 317 days of data collected between June 2010 and May 2011 are consistent with the expected background from atmospheric muons and neutrinos. Upper limits are set on the dark matter annihilation rate, with conversions to limits on spin-dependent and spin-independent scattering cross sections of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) on protons, for WIMP masses in the range 20-5000 GeV=c(2). These are the most stringent spin-dependent WIMP-proton cross section limits to date above 35 GeV=c(2) for most WIMP models.
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| 4. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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IceTop : The surface component of IceCube
- 2013
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 700, s. 188-220
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- IceTop, the surface component of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, is an air shower array with an area of 1 km(2). The detector allows a detailed exploration of the mass composition of primary cosmic rays in the energy range from about 100 TeV to 1 EeV by exploiting the correlation between the shower energy measured in IceTop and the energy deposited by muons in the deep ice. In this paper we report on the technical design, construction and installation, the trigger and data acquisition systems as well as the software framework for calibration, reconstruction and simulation. Finally the first experience from commissioning and operating the detector and the performance as an air shower detector will be discussed.
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| 5. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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Time-dependent searches for point sources of neutrinos with the 40-string and 22-string configurations of IceCube
- 2012
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 744:1, s. 1-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents four searches for flaring sources of neutrinos using the IceCube neutrino telescope. For the first time, a search is performed over the entire parameter space of energy, direction, and time with sensitivity to neutrino flares lasting between 20 mu s and a year duration from astrophysical sources. Searches that integrate over time are less sensitive to flares because they are affected by a larger background of atmospheric neutrinos and muons that can be reduced by the use of additional timing information. Flaring sources considered here, such as active galactic nuclei, soft gamma-ray repeaters, and gamma-ray bursts, are promising candidate neutrino emitters. Two searches are "untriggered" in the sense that they look for any possible flare in the entire sky and from a predefined catalog of sources from which photon flares have been recorded. The other two searches are triggered by multi-wavelength information on flares from blazars and from a soft gamma-ray repeater. One triggered search uses lightcurves from Fermi-LAT which provides continuous monitoring. A second triggered search uses information where the flux states have been measured only for short periods of time near the flares. The untriggered searches use data taken by 40 strings of IceCube between 2008 April 5 and 2009 May 20. The triggered searches also use data taken by the 22-string configuration of IceCube operating between 2007 May 31 and 2008 April 5. The results from all four searches are compatible with a fluctuation of the background.
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| 6. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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Time-integrated Searches for Point-like Sources of Neutrinos with the 40-string IceCube Detector
- 2011
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 732:1, s. 18-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of time-integrated searches for astrophysical neutrino sources in both the northern and southern skies. Data were collected using the partially completed IceCube detector in the 40-string configuration recorded between 2008 April 5 and 2009 May 20, totaling 375.5 days livetime. An unbinned maximum likelihood ratio method is used to search for astrophysical signals. The data sample contains 36,900 events: 14,121 from the northern sky, mostly muons induced by atmospheric neutrinos, and 22,779 from the southern sky, mostly high-energy atmospheric muons. The analysis includes searches for individual point sources and stacked searches for sources in a common class, sometimes including a spatial extent. While this analysis is sensitive to TeV-PeV energy neutrinos in the northern sky, it is primarily sensitive to neutrinos with energy greater than about 1 PeV in the southern sky. No evidence for a signal is found in any of the searches. Limits are set for neutrino fluxes from astrophysical sources over the entire sky and compared to predictions. The sensitivity is at least a factor of two better than previous searches (depending on declination), with 90% confidence level muon neutrino flux upper limits being between E(2)d Phi/dE similar to 2-200 x 10(-12) TeV cm(-2) s(-1) in the northern sky and between 3-700 x 10(-12) TeV cm(-2) s(-1) in the southern sky. The stacked source searches provide the best limits to specific source classes. The full IceCube detector is expected to improve the sensitivity to d Phi/dE proportional to E-2 sources by another factor of two in the first year of operation.
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| 7. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Observation of Cosmic-Ray Anisotropy with the Icetop Air Shower Array
- 2013
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 765:1, s. 55-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the observation of anisotropy in the arrival direction distribution of cosmic rays at PeV energies. The analysis is based on data taken between 2009 and 2012 with the IceTop air shower array at the south pole. IceTop, an integral part of the IceCube detector, is sensitive to cosmic rays between 100 TeV and 1 EeV. With the current size of the IceTop data set, searches for anisotropy at the 10(-3) level can, for the first time, be extended to PeV energies. We divide the data set into two parts with median energies of 400 TeV and 2 PeV, respectively. In the low energy band, we observe a strong deficit with an angular size of about 30 degrees and an amplitude of (-1.58 +/- 0.46(stat) +/- 0.52(sys)) x 10(-3) at a location consistent with previous observations of cosmic rays with the IceCube neutrino detector. The study of the high energy band shows that the anisotropy persists to PeV energies and increases in amplitude to (-3.11 +/- 0.38(stat) +/- 0.96(sys)) x 10(-3).
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| 8. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Search for Galactic PeV gamma rays with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 87:6, s. 062002-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gamma-ray induced air showers are notable for their lack of muons, compared to hadronic showers. Hence, air shower arrays with large underground muon detectors can select a sample greatly enriched in photon showers by rejecting showers containing muons. IceCube is sensitive to muons with energies above similar to 500 GeV at the surface, which provides an efficient veto system for hadronic air showers with energies above 1 PeV. One year of data from the 40-string IceCube configuration was used to perform a search for point sources and a Galactic diffuse signal. No sources were found, resulting in a 90% C.L. upper limit on the ratio of gamma rays to cosmic rays of 1.2 x 10(-3) for the flux coming from the Galactic plane region (-80 degrees less than or similar to l less than or similar to -30 degrees; -10 degrees less than or similar to b less than or similar to 5 degrees) in the energy range 1.2-6.0 PeV. In the same energy range, point source fluxes with E-2 spectra have been excluded at a level of (E/TeV)(2)d Phi/dE similar to 10(-12)-10(-11) cm(-2) s(-1) TeV-1 depending on source declination. The complete IceCube detector will have a better sensitivity (due to the larger detector size), improved reconstruction, and vetoing techniques. Preliminary data from the nearly final IceCube detector configuration have been used to estimate the 5-yr sensitivity of the full detector. It is found to be more than an order of magnitude better, allowing the search for PeV extensions of known TeV gamma-ray emitters.
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| 9. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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An improved method for measuring muon energy using the truncated mean of dE/dx
- 2013
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 703, s. 190-198
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The measurement of muon energy is critical for many analyses in large Cherenkov detectors, particularly those that involve separating extraterrestrial neutrinos from the atmospheric neutrino background. Muon energy has traditionally been determined by measuring the specific energy loss (dE/dx) along the muon's path and relating the dE/dx to the muon energy. Because high-energy muons (Eμ>1TeV) lose energy randomly, the spread in dE/dx values is quite large, leading to a typical energy resolution of 0.29 in log10(Eμ) for a muon observed over a 1 km path length in the IceCube detector. In this paper, we present an improved method that uses a truncated mean and other techniques to determine the muon energy. The muon track is divided into separate segments with individual dE/dx values. The elimination of segments with the highest dE/dx results in an overall dE/dx that is more closely correlated to the muon energy. This method results in an energy resolution of 0.22 in log10(Eμ), which gives a 26% improvement. This technique is applicable to any large water or ice detector and potentially to large scintillator or liquid argon detectors.
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| 10. |
- Abbasi, R., et al.
(författare)
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Cosmic ray composition and energy spectrum from 1-30 PeV using the 40-string configuration of IceTop and IceCube
- 2013
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Ingår i: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 42, s. 15-32
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The mass composition of high energy cosmic rays depends on their production, acceleration, and propagation. The study of cosmic ray composition can therefore reveal hints of the origin of these particles. At the South Pole, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is capable of measuring two components of cosmic ray air showers in coincidence: the electromagnetic component at high altitude (2835 m) using the IceTop surface array, and the muonic component above ∼1 TeV using the IceCube array. This unique detector arrangement provides an opportunity for precision measurements of the cosmic ray energy spectrum and composition in the region of the knee and beyond. We present the results of a neural network analysis technique to study the cosmic ray composition and the energy spectrum from 1 PeV to 30 PeV using data recorded using the 40-string/40-station configuration of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.
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