| 31. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
Atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos above 1 TeV interacting in IceCube
- 2015
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Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 91:2, s. 022001-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The IceCube Neutrino Observatory was designed primarily to search for high-energy (TeV-PeV) neutLrinos produced in distant astrophysical objects. A search for. greater than or similar to 100 TeV neutrinos interacting inside the instrumented volume has recently provided evidence for an isotropic flux of such neutrinos. At lower energies, IceCube collects large numbers of neutrinos from the weak decays of mesons in cosmic-ray air showers. Here we present the results of a search for neutrino interactions inside IceCube's instrumented volume between 1 TeV and 1 PeV in 641 days of data taken from 2010-2012, lowering the energy threshold for neutrinos from the southern sky below 10 TeV for the first time, far below the threshold of the previous high-energy analysis. Astrophysical neutrinos remain the dominant component in the southern sky down to a deposited energy of 10 TeV. From these data we derive new constraints on the diffuse astrophysical neutrino spectrum, Phi(v) = 2.06(-0.3)(+0.4) x 10(-18) (E-v = 10(5) GeV)-2.46 +/- 0.12GeV-1 cm(-2) sr(-1) s(-1) for 25 TeV < E-v < 1.4 PeV, as well as the strongest upper limit yet on the flux of neutrinos from charmed-meson decay in the atmosphere, 1.52 times the benchmark theoretical prediction used in previous IceCube results at 90% confidence.
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| 32. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
Determining neutrino oscillation parameters from atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance with three years of IceCube DeepCore data
- 2015
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Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 91:7
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 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 IceCube instrumentation, enables the detection and reconstruction of atmospheric muon neutrinos between 10 and 100 GeV, where a strong disappearance signal is expected. The IceCube 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 oscillation parameters from the data, with the best fit given by Delta m(32)(2) = 2.72(-0.20)(+0.19) x 10(-3) eV(2) and sin(2)theta(23) = 0.53(-0.12)(+0.09) (normal mass ordering assumed). The results are compatible, and comparable in precision, to those of dedicated oscillation experiments.
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| 33. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
Development of a general analysis and unfolding scheme and its application to measure the energy spectrum of atmospheric neutrinos with IceCube
- 2015
-
Ingår i: European Physical Journal C. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1434-6044 .- 1434-6052. ; 75:3
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the development and application of a generic analysis scheme for the measurement of neutrino spectra with the IceCube detector. This scheme is based on regularized unfolding, preceded by an event selection which uses a Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance algorithm to select the relevant variables and a random forest for the classification of events. The analysis has been developed using IceCube data from the 59-string configuration of the detector. 27,771 neutrino candidates were detected in 346 days of livetime. A rejection of 99.9999 % of the atmospheric muon background is achieved. The energy spectrum of the atmospheric neutrino flux is obtained using the TRUEE unfolding program. The unfolded spectrum of atmospheric muon neutrinos covers an energy range from 100 GeV to 1 PeV. Compared to the previous measurement using the detector in the 40-string configuration, the analysis presented here, extends the upper end of the atmospheric neutrino spectrum by more than a factor of two, reaching an energy region that has not been previously accessed by spectral measurements.
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| 34. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Energy reconstruction methods in the IceCube neutrino telescope
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Journal of Instrumentation. - 1748-0221. ; 9, s. P03009-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accurate measurement of neutrino energies is essential to many of the scientific goals of large-volume neutrino telescopes. The fundamental observable in such detectors is the Cherenkov light produced by the transit through a medium of charged particles created in neutrino interactions. The amount of light emitted is proportional to the deposited energy, which is approximately equal to the neutrino energy for v(e) and v(mu) charged-current interactions and can be used to set a lower bound on neutrino energies and to measure neutrino spectra statistically in other channels. Here we describe methods and performance of reconstructing charged-particle energies and topologies from the observed Cherenkov light yield, including techniques to measure the energies of uncontained muon tracks, achieving average uncertainties in electromagnetic-equivalent deposited energy of similar to 15% above 10 TeV.
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| 35. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube
- 2015
-
Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 114:17
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos above 100 TeV has been observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Here we extend this analysis to probe the astrophysical flux down to 35 TeV and analyze its flavor composition by classifying events as showers or tracks. Taking advantage of lower atmospheric backgrounds for showerlike events, we obtain a shower-biased sample containing 129 showers and 8 tracks collected in three years from 2010 to 2013. We demonstrate consistency with the (f(e) : f(mu) : f(tau))(circle plus) approximate to (1 : 1 : 1)(circle plus) flavor ratio at Earth commonly expected from the averaged oscillations of neutrinos produced by pion decay in distant astrophysical sources. Limits are placed on nonstandard flavor compositions that cannot be produced by averaged neutrino oscillations but could arise in exotic physics scenarios. A maximally tracklike composition of (0 : 1 : 0)(circle plus) is excluded at 3.3 sigma, and a purely showerlike composition of (1 : 0 : 0)(circle plus) is excluded at 2.3 sigma.
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| 36. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 88:12
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of a first search for self-annihilating dark matter in nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters using a sample of high-energy neutrinos acquired in 339.8 days of live time during 2009/10 with the IceCube neutrino observatory in its 59-string configuration. The targets of interest include the Virgo and Coma galaxy clusters, the Andromeda galaxy, and several dwarf galaxies. We obtain upper limits on the cross section as a function of the weakly interacting massive particle mass between 300 GeV and 100 TeV for the annihilation into b (b) over bar, W+(W) over bar (-), tau(+)tau(-), mu(+)mu(-) , and nu(nu) over bar. A limit derived for the Virgo cluster, when assuming a large effect from subhalos, challenges the weakly interacting massive particle interpretation of a recently observed GeV positron excess in cosmic rays.
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| 37. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Improvement in fast particle track reconstruction with robust statistics
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 736, s. 143-149
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The IceCube project has transformed 1 km(3) of deep natural Antarctic ice into a Cherenkov detector Muon neutrinos are detected and their direction is inferred by mapping the light produced by the secondary muon track inside the volume instrumented with photomultipliers. Reconstructing the muon track from the observed light is challenging due to noise, light scattering in the ice medium, and the possibility of simultaneously having multiple muons inside the detector, resulting from the large flux of cosmic ray muons. This paper describes work on two problems: (1) the truck reconstruction problem, in which, given a set of observations, the goal is to recover the track of a muon; and (2) the coincident event problem, which is to determine how many muons are active in the detector during a time window. Rather than solving these problems by developing more complex physical models that are applied at later stages of the analysis, our approach is to augment the detector's early reconstruction with data filters and robust statistical techniques. These can be implemented at the level of on-line reconstruction and, therefore, improve all subsequent reconstructions. Using the metric of median angular resolution, a standard metric for track reconstruction, we improve the accuracy in the initial reconstruction direction by 13%. We also present improvements in measuring the number of muons in coincident events: we can accurately determine the number of muons 98% of the time.
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| 38. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum with IceTop-73
- 2013
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Ingår i: Physical Review D. - 1550-7998 .- 1550-2368. ; 88:4, s. 042004-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the measurement of the all-particle cosmic ray energy spectrum with the IceTop air shower array in the energy range from 1.58 PeV to 1.26 EeV. The IceTop air shower array is the surface component of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the geographical South Pole. The analysis was performed using only information from IceTop. The data used in this work were taken from June 1, 2010 to May 13, 2011. During that period the IceTop array consisted of 73 stations, compared to 81 in its final configuration. The measured spectrum exhibits a clear deviation from a single power law above the knee around 4 PeV and below 1 EeV. We observe spectral hardening around 18 PeV and steepening around 130 PeV.
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| 39. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
Multipole analysis of IceCube data to search for dark matter accumulated in the Galactic halo
- 2015
-
Ingår i: European Physical Journal C. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1434-6044 .- 1434-6052. ; 75:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dark matter which is bound in the Galactic halo might self-annihilate and produce a flux of stable final state particles, e. g. high energy neutrinos. These neutrinos can be detected with IceCube, a cubic-kilometer sized Cherenkov detector. Given IceCube's large field of view, a characteristic anisotropy of the additional neutrino flux is expected. In this paper we describe a multipole method to search for such a large-scale anisotropy in IceCube data. This method uses the expansion coefficients of a multipole expansion of neutrino arrival directions and incorporates signal-specific weights for each expansion coefficient. We apply the technique to a high-purity muon neutrino sample from the Northern Hemisphere. The final result is compatible with the null-hypothesis. As no signal was observed, we present limits on the self-annihilation cross-section averaged over the relative velocity distribution down to 1.9x10(-23) cm(3) s(-1) for a dark matter particle mass of 700-1,000 GeV and direct annihilation into nu(nu) over bar. The resulting exclusion limits come close to exclusion limits from gamma-ray experiments, that focus on the outer Galactic halo, for high dark matter masses of a few TeV and hard annihilation channels.
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| 40. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
-
Observation of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos in Three Years of IceCube Data
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 113:10, s. 101101-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A search for high-energy neutrinos interacting within the IceCube detector between 2010 and 2012 provided the first evidence for a high-energy neutrino flux of extraterrestrial origin. Results from an analysis using the same methods with a third year (2012-2013) of data from the complete IceCube detector are consistent with the previously reported astrophysical flux in the 100 TeV-PeV range at the level of 10(-8) GeV cm(-2) s(-1) sr(-1) per flavor and reject a purely atmospheric explanation for the combined three-year data at 5.7 sigma. The data are consistent with expectations for equal fluxes of all three neutrino flavors and with isotropic arrival directions, suggesting either numerous or spatially extended sources. The three-year data set, with a live time of 988 days, contains a total of 37 neutrino candidate events with deposited energies ranging from 30 to 2000 TeV. The 2000-TeV event is the highest-energy neutrino interaction ever observed.
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