| 21. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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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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| 22. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Constraints on Minute-Scale Transient Astrophysical Neutrino Sources
- 2019
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - : AMER PHYSICAL SOC. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 122:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- High-energy neutrino emission has been predicted for several short-lived astrophysical transients including gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), core-collapse supernovae with choked jets, and neutron star mergers. IceCube's optical and x-ray follow-up program searches for such transient sources by looking for two or more muon neutrino candidates in directional coincidence and arriving within 100 s. The measured rate of neutrino alerts is consistent with the expected rate of chance coincidences of atmospheric background events and no likely electromagnetic counterparts have been identified in Swift follow-up observations. Here, we calculate generic bounds on the neutrino flux of short-lived transient sources. Assuming an E-2.5 neutrino spectrum, we find that the neutrino flux of rare sources, like long gamma-ray bursts, is constrained to < 5% of the detected astrophysical flux and the energy released in neutrinos (100 GeV to 10 PeV) by a median bright GRB-like source is < 10(52.5) erg. For a harder E-2.13 neutrino spectrum up to 30% of the flux could be produced by GRBs and the allowed median source energy is < 10(52) erg. A hypothetical population of transient sources has to be more common than 10(-5) Mpc(-3) yr(-1) (5 x 10(-8) Mpc(-3) yr(-1) for the E-2.13 spectrum) to account for the complete astrophysical neutrino flux.
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| 23. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Development of an analysis to probe the neutrino mass ordering with atmospheric neutrinos using three years of IceCube DeepCore data IceCube Collaboration
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Physical Journal C. - : SPRINGER. - 1434-6044 .- 1434-6052. ; 80:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Neutrino Mass Ordering (NMO) remains one of the outstanding questions in the field of neutrino physics. One strategy to measure the NMO is to observe matter effects in the oscillation pattern of atmospheric neutrinos above similar to 1GeV, as proposed for several next-generation neutrino experiments. Moreover, the existing IceCube DeepCore detector can already explore this type of measurement. We present the development and application of two independent analyses to search for the signature of the NMO with three years of DeepCore data. These analyses include a full treatment of systematic uncertainties and a statistically-rigorous method to determine the significance for the NMO from a fit to the data. Both analyses show that the dataset is fully compatible with both mass orderings. For the more sensitive analysis, we observe a preference for normal ordering with a p-value of pIO=15.3% and CLs=53.3% for the inverted ordering hypothesis, while the experimental results from both analyses are consistent within their uncertainties. Since the result is independent of the value of delta CP and obtained from energies E nu greater than or similar to 5GeV, it is complementary to recent results from long-baseline experiments. These analyses set the groundwork for the future of this measurement with more capable detectors, such as the IceCube Upgrade and the proposed PINGU detector.
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| 24. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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PINGU : a vision for neutrino and particle physics at the South Pole
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Physics G. - : IOP Publishing. - 0954-3899 .- 1361-6471. ; 44:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade (PINGU) is a proposed low-energy in-fill extension to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. With detection technology modeled closely on the successful IceCube example, PINGU will provide a 6 Mton effective mass for neutrino detection with an energy threshold of a few GeV. With an unprecedented sample of over 60 000 atmospheric neutrinos per year in this energy range, PINGU will make highly competitive measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters in an energy range over an order of magnitude higher than long-baseline neutrino beam experiments. PINGU will measure the mixing parameters theta(23) and Delta m(32)(2), including the octant of theta(23) for a wide range of values, and determine the neutrino mass ordering at 3 sigma median significance within five years of operation. PINGU's high precision measurement of the rate of nu(T) appearance will provide essential tests of the unitarity of the 3 x 3 PMNS neutrino mixing matrix. PINGU will also improve the sensitivity of searches for low mass dark matter in the Sun, use neutrino tomography to directly probe the composition of the Earth's core, and improve IceCube's sensitivity to neutrinos from Galactic supernovae. Reoptimization of the PINGU design has permitted substantial reduction in both cost and logistical requirements while delivering performance nearly identical to configurations previously studied.
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| 25. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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SEARCH FOR TIME-INDEPENDENT NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM ASTROPHYSICAL SOURCES WITH 3 yr OF IceCube DATASearch for time-independent neutrino emission from astrophysical sources with 3 yr of icecube data
- 2013
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 779:2, s. 132-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of a search for neutrino point sources using the IceCube data collected between 2008 April and 2011 May with three partially completed configurations of the detector: the 40-, 59-, and 79-string configurations. The live-time of this data set is 1040 days. An unbinned maximum likelihood ratio test was used to search for an excess of neutrinos above the atmospheric background at any given direction in the sky. By adding two more years of data with improved event selection and reconstruction techniques, the sensitivity was improved by a factor of 3.5 or more with respect to the previously published results obtained with the 40-string configuration of IceCube. We performed an all-sky survey and a dedicated search using a catalog of a priori selected objects observed by other telescopes. In both searches, the data are compatible with the background-only hypothesis. In the absence of evidence for a signal, we set upper limits on the flux of muon neutrinos. For an E-2 neutrino spectrum, the observed limits are (0.9-5) x 10(-12) TeV-1 cm(-2) s(-1) for energies between 1 TeV and 1 PeV in the northern sky and (0.9-23.2) x 10(-12) TeV-1 cm(-2) s(-1) for energies between 10(2) TeV and 10(2) PeV in the southern sky. We also report upper limits for neutrino emission from groups of sources that were selected according to theoretical models or observational parameters and analyzed with a stacking approach. Some of the limits presented already reach the level necessary to quantitatively test current models of neutrino emission.
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| 26. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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The Contribution Of Fermi-2Lac Blazars To Diffuse Tev-Pev Neutrino Flux
- 2017
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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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| 27. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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The IceCube Neutrino Observatory : instrumentation and online systems
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Instrumentation. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 1748-0221. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic-kilometer-scale high-energy neutrino detector built into the ice at the South Pole. Construction of IceCube, the largest neutrino detector built to date, was completed in 2011 and enabled the discovery of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. We describe here the design, production, and calibration of the IceCube digital optical module (DOM), the cable systems, computing hardware, and our methodology for drilling and deployment. We also describe the online triggering and data filtering systems that select candidate neutrino and cosmic ray events for analysis. Due to a rigorous pre-deployment protocol, 98.4% of the DOMs in the deep ice are operating and collecting data. IceCube routinely achieves a detector uptime of 99% by emphasizing software stability and monitoring. Detector operations have been stable since construction was completed, and the detector is expected to operate at least until the end of the next decade.
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| 28. |
- Kankare, E., et al.
(författare)
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Search for transient optical counterparts to high-energy IceCube neutrinos with Pan-STARRS1
- 2019
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 626
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In order to identify the sources of the observed diffuse high-energy neutrino flux, it is crucial to discover their electromagnetic counterparts. To increase the sensitivity of detecting counterparts of transient or variable sources by telescopes with a limited field of view, IceCube began releasing alerts for single high-energy (E-v > 60 TeV) neutrino detections with sky localisation regions of order 1 degrees radius in 2016. We used Pan-STARRS1 to follow-up five of these alerts during 2016-2017 to search for any optical transients that may be related to the neutrinos. Typically 10-20 faint m(ip1) less than or similar to 22.5 mag) extragalactic transients are found within the Pan-STARRS1 footprints and are generally consistent with being unrelated field supernovae (SNe) and AGN. We looked for unusual properties of the detected transients, such as temporal coincidence of explosion epoch with the IceCube timestamp, or other peculiar light curve and physical properties. We found only one transient that had properties worthy of a specific follow-up. In the Pan-STARRS1 imaging for IceCube-160427A (probability to be of astrophysical origin of similar to 50%), we found a SN PS16cgx, located at 10.0' from the nominal IceCube direction. Spectroscopic observations of PS16cgx showed that it was an H-poor SN at redshift z = 0.2895 +/- 0.0001. The spectra and light curve resemble some high-energy Type Ic SNe, raising the possibility of a jet driven SN with an explosion epoch temporally coincident with the neutrino detection. However, distinguishing Type Ia and Type Ic SNe at this redshift is notoriously difficult. Based on all available data we conclude that the transient is more likely to be a Type Ia with relatively weak Sin absorption and a fairly normal rest-frame r-band light curve. If, as predicted, there is no high-energy neutrino emission from Type Ia SNe, then PS16cgx must be a random coincidence, and unrelated to the IceCube-160427A. We find no other plausible optical transient for any of the five IceCube events observed down to a 5 sigma limiting magnitude of mip1 approximate to 22 mag, between 1 day and 25 days after detection.
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| 29. |
- Aartsen, M. G., et al.
(författare)
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Differential limit on the extremely-high-energy cosmic neutrino flux in the presence of astrophysical background from nine years of IceCube data
- 2018
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Ingår i: Physical Review D. - : AMER PHYSICAL SOC. - 2470-0010 .- 2470-0029. ; 98:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report a quasidifferential upper limit on the extremely-high-energy (EHE) neutrino flux above 5 x 10(6) GeV based on an analysis of nine years of IceCube data. The astrophysical neutrino flux measured by IceCube extends to PeV energies, and it is a background flux when searching for an independent signal flux at higher energies, such as the cosmogenic neutrino signal. We have developed a new method to place robust limits on the EHE neutrino flux in the presence of an astrophysical background, whose spectrum has yet to be understood with high precision at PeV energies. A distinct event with a deposited energy above 10(6) GeV was found in the new two-year sample, in addition to the one event previously found in the seven-year EHE neutrino search. These two events represent a neutrino flux that is incompatible with predictions for a cosmogenic neutrino flux and are considered to be an astrophysical background in the current study. The obtained limit is the most stringent to date in the energy range between 5 x 10(6) and 2 x 10(10) GeV. This result constrains neutrino models predicting a three-flavor neutrino flux of E-nu(2)phi(nu e+nu mu+nu tau) similar or equal to 2 x 10(-8) GeV/cm(2) sec sr at 10(9) GeV. A significant part of the parameter space for EHE neutrino production scenarios assuming a proton-dominated composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays is disfavored independently of uncertain models of the extragalactic background light which previous IceCube constraints partially relied on.
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| 30. |
- 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
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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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