207 research outputs found
On the feasibility of RADAR detection of high-energy neutrino-induced showers in ice
In this article we try to answer the question whether the radar detection
technique can be used for the detection of high-energy-neutrino induced
particle cascades in ice. A high-energy neutrino interacting in ice will induce
a particle cascade, also referred to as a particle shower, moving at
approximately the speed of light. Passing through, the cascade will ionize the
medium, leaving behind a plasma tube. The different properties of the
plasma-tube, such as its lifetime, size and the charge-density will be used to
obtain an estimate if it is possible to detect this tube by means of the radar
detection technique. Next to the ionization electrons a second plasma due to
mobile protons induced by the particle cascade is discussed. An energy
threshold for the cascade inducing particle of 4 PeV for the electron plasma,
and 20 PeV for the proton plasma is obtained. This allows the radar detection
technique, if successful, to cover the energy-gap between several PeV and a few
EeV in the currently operating neutrino detectors, where on the low side
IceCube runs out of events, and on the high side the Askaryan radio detectors
begin to have large effective volumes
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The IceCube Data Acquisition Software: Lessons Learned during Distributed, Collaborative, Multi-Disciplined Software Development.
In this experiential paper we report on lessons learned during the development ofthe data acquisition software for the IceCube project - specifically, how to effectively address the unique challenges presented by a distributed, collaborative, multi-institutional, multi-disciplined project such as this. While development progress in software projects is often described solely in terms of technical issues, our experience indicates that non- and quasi-technical interactions play a substantial role in the effectiveness of large software development efforts. These include: selection and management of multiple software development methodologies, the effective useof various collaborative communication tools, project management structure and roles, and the impact and apparent importance of these elements when viewed through the differing perspectives of hardware, software, scientific and project office roles. Even in areas clearly technical in nature, success is still influenced by non-technical issues that can escape close attention. In particular we describe our experiences on software requirements specification, development methodologies and communication tools. We make observations on what tools and techniques have and have not been effective in this geographically disperse (including the South Pole) collaboration and offer suggestions on how similarly structured future projects may build upon our experiences
TeV Particle Astrophysics II: Summary comments
A unifying theme of this conference was the use of different approaches to
understand astrophysical sources of energetic particles in the TeV range and
above. In this summary I review how gamma-ray astronomy, neutrino astronomy and
(to some extent) gravitational wave astronomy provide complementary avenues to
understanding the origin and role of high-energy particles in energetic
astrophysical sources.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures; Conference summary talk for "TeV Particle
Astrophysics II" at University of Wisconsin, Madison, 28-31 August 200
Non-standard neutrino interactions in IceCube
Non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) may arise in various types of new physics. Their existence would change the potential that atmospheric neutrinos encounter when traversing Earth matter and hence alter their oscillation behavior. This imprint on coherent neutrino forward scattering can be probed using high-statistics neutrino experiments such as IceCube and its low-energy extension, DeepCore. Both provide extensive data samples that include all neutrino flavors, with oscillation baselines between tens of kilometers and the diameter of the Earth.
DeepCore event energies reach from a few GeV up to the order of 100 GeV - which marks the lower threshold for higher energy IceCube atmospheric samples, ranging up to 10 TeV.
In DeepCore data, the large sample size and energy range allow us to consider not only flavor-violating and flavor-nonuniversal NSI in the μ−τ sector, but also those involving electron flavor.
The effective parameterization used in our analyses is independent of the underlying model and the new physics mass scale. In this way, competitive limits on several NSI parameters have been set in the past. The 8 years of data available now result in significantly improved sensitivities. This improvement stems not only from the increase in statistics but also from substantial improvement in the treatment of systematic uncertainties, background rejection and event reconstruction
IceCube Search for Earth-traversing ultra-high energy Neutrinos
The search for ultra-high energy neutrinos is more than half a century old. While the hunt for these neutrinos has led to major leaps in neutrino physics, including the detection of astrophysical neutrinos, neutrinos at the EeV energy scale remain undetected. Proposed strategies for the future have mostly been focused on direct detection of the first neutrino interaction, or the decay shower of the resulting charged particle. Here we present an analysis that uses, for the first time, an indirect detection strategy for EeV neutrinos. We focus on tau neutrinos that have traversed Earth, and show that they reach the IceCube detector, unabsorbed, at energies greater than 100 TeV for most trajectories. This opens up the search for ultra-high energy neutrinos to the entire sky. We use ten years of IceCube data to perform an analysis that looks for secondary neutrinos in the northern sky, and highlight the promise such a strategy can have in the next generation of experiments when combined with direct detection techniques
Posteriori analysis on IceCube double pulse tau neutrino candidates
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detects Cherenkov light emitted by charged secondary particles created by primary neutrino interactions. Double pulse waveforms can arise from charged current interactions of astrophysical tau neutrinos with nucleons in the ice and the subsequent decay of tau leptons. The previous 8-year tau double pulse analysis found three tau neutrino candidate events. Among them, the most promising one observed in 2014 is located very near the dust layer in the middle of the detector. A posterior analysis on this event will be presented in this paper, using a new ice model treatment with continuously varying nuisance parameters to do the targeted Monte Carlo re-simulation for tau and other background neutrino ensembles. The impact of different ice models on the expected signal and background statistics will also be discussed
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