318 research outputs found
A compact and light-weight refractive telescope for the observation of extensive air showers
A general purpose instrument for imaging of Cherenkov light or fluorescence
light emitted by extensive air showers is presented. Its refractive optics
allows for a compact and light-weight design with a wide field-of-view of
12{\deg}. The optical system features a 0.5 m diameter Fresnel lens and a
camera with 61 pixels composed of Winston cones and large-sized 6x6 mm photo
sensors. As photo sensors, semi conductor light sensors (SiPMs) are utilized.
The camera provides a high photon detection efficiency together with robust
operation. The enclosed optics permit operation in regions of harsh
environmental conditions. The low price of the telescope allows the production
of a large number of telescopes and the application of the instrument in
various projects, such as FAMOUS for the Pierre Auger Observatory, HAWC's Eye
for HAWC or IceAct for IceCube. In this paper the novel design of this
telescope and first measurements are presented.Comment: Submitted to JINST, second (minor) revisio
Reduction of optical crosstalk in SiPMs due to coupled light guides and investigation of other properties demonstrated with the SensL MicroFJ-60035-TSV
The optical coupling of light guides to Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs)
influences the probability for optical crosstalk. Measurements of the crosstalk
probability and the relative gain of 122 SiPMs of type SensL MicroFJ-60035-TSV
are presented. Semi-conductor photo sensors have replaced photo multiplier
tubes in numerous applications featuring single-photon resolution,
insensitivity to magnetic fields, higher robustness and enhanced photo
detection efficiency at lower operation voltage and lower costs. Light guides
are used to increase the comparably small photo sensitive area of SiPMs. Their
optical coupling changes the surface conditions of the sensor and influences
the probability for crosstalk photons to leave the sensor without inducing
secondary breakdowns. This study compares properties of sensors that are
optically coupled to light guides with bare sensors, operated at nominal bias
voltage. It demonstrates, that the optical coupling to a light guide
significantly reduces the crosstalk probability of the measured sensors
Book Reviews
With the observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, interest has risen in models of PeV-mass decaying dark matter particles to explain the observed flux. We present two dedicated experimental analyses to test this hypothesis. One analysis uses 6 years of IceCube data focusing on muon neutrino ‘track’ events from the Northern Hemisphere, while the second analysis uses 2 years of ‘cascade’ events from the full sky. Known background components and the hypothetical flux from unstable dark matter are fitted to the experimental data. Since no significant excess is observed in either analysis, lower limits on the lifetime of dark matter particles are derived: we obtain the strongest constraint to date, excluding lifetimes shorter than s at 90% CL for dark matter masses above 10 TeV
Search for transient optical counterparts to high-energy IceCube neutrinos with Pan-STARRS1
In order to identify the sources of the observed diffuse high-energy neutrino
flux, it is crucial to discover their electromagnetic counterparts. IceCube
began releasing alerts for single high-energy ( TeV) neutrino
detections with sky localisation regions of order 1 deg 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 ( 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. 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 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 z = 0.2895. 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 SiII 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
limiting magnitude of mag, between 1 day and 25 days after
detection.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, accepted to A&
Neutrinos below 100 TeV from the southern sky employing refined veto techniques to IceCube data
Many Galactic sources of gamma rays, such as supernova remnants, are expected
to produce neutrinos with a typical energy cutoff well below 100 TeV. For the
IceCube Neutrino Observatory located at the South Pole, the southern sky,
containing the inner part of the Galactic plane and the Galactic Center, is a
particularly challenging region at these energies, because of the large
background of atmospheric muons. In this paper, we present recent advancements
in data selection strategies for track-like muon neutrino events with energies
below 100 TeV from the southern sky. The strategies utilize the outer detector
regions as veto and features of the signal pattern to reduce the background of
atmospheric muons to a level which, for the first time, allows IceCube
searching for point-like sources of neutrinos in the southern sky at energies
between 100 GeV and several TeV in the muon neutrino charged current channel.
No significant clustering of neutrinos above background expectation was
observed in four years of data recorded with the completed IceCube detector.
Upper limits on the neutrino flux for a number of spectral hypotheses are
reported for a list of astrophysical objects in the southern hemisphere.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, 2 table
Differential limit on the extremely-high-energy cosmic neutrino flux in the presence of astrophysical background from nine years of IceCube data
We report a quasi-differential upper limit on the extremely-high-energy (EHE)
neutrino flux above 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 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 and GeV. This result constrains neutrino models predicting a three-flavor
neutrino flux of $E_\nu^2\phi_{\nu_e+\nu_\mu+\nu_\tau}\simeq2\times 10^{-8}\
{\rm GeV}/{\rm cm}^2\ \sec\ {\rm sr}10^9\ {\rm GeV}$. A significant part
of the parameter-space for EHE neutrino production scenarios assuming a
proton-dominated composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays is excluded.Comment: The version accepted for publication in Physical Review
Searching for eV-scale sterile neutrinos with eight years of atmospheric neutrinos at the IceCube Neutrino Telescope
We report in detail on searches for eV-scale sterile neutrinos, in the context of a 3+1 model, using eight years of data from the IceCube Neutrino Telescope. By analyzing the reconstructed energies and zenith angles of 305,735 atmospheric νμ and ¯νμ events we construct confidence intervals in two analysis spaces: sin2(2θ) vs Δm2¦41 under the conservative assumption θ=0; and sin (2θ) vs sin (2θ) given sufficiently large Δm2¦41 that fast oscillation features are unresolvable. Detailed discussions of the event selection, systematic uncertainties, and fitting procedures are presented. No strong evidence for sterile neutrinos is found, and the best-fit likelihood is consistent with the no sterile neutrino hypothesis with a p value of 8% in the first analysis space and 19% in the second
All-flavor constraints on nonstandard neutrino interactions and generalized matter potential with three years of IceCube DeepCore data
We report constraints on nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSI) from the observation of atmospheric neutrinos with IceCube, limiting all individual coupling strengths from a single dataset. Furthermore, IceCube is the first experiment to constrain flavor-violating and nonuniversal couplings simultaneously. Hypothetical NSI are generically expected to arise due to the exchange of a new heavy mediator particle. Neutrinos propagating in matter scatter off fermions in the forward direction with negligible momentum transfer. Hence the study of the matter effect on neutrinos propagating in the Earth is sensitive to NSI independently of the energy scale of new physics. We present constraints on NSI obtained with an all-flavor event sample of atmospheric neutrinos based on three years of IceCube DeepCore data. The analysis uses neutrinos arriving from all directions, with reconstructed energies between 5.6 GeV and 100 GeV. We report constraints on the individual NSI coupling strengths considered singly, allowing for complex phases in the case of flavor-violating couplings. This demonstrates that IceCube is sensitive to the full NSI flavor structure at a level competitive with limits from the global analysis of all other experiments. In addition, we investigate a generalized matter potential, whose overall scale and flavor structure are also constrained
eV-Scale Sterile Neutrino Search Using Eight Years of Atmospheric Muon Neutrino Data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
The results of a 3+1 sterile neutrino search using eight years of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory are presented. A total of 305 735 muon neutrino events are analyzed in reconstructed energy-zenith space to test for signatures of a matter-enhanced oscillation that would occur given a sterile neutrino state with a mass-squared differences between 0.01 and 100  eV. The best-fit point is found to be at sin (2θ)=0.10 and Δm2/41 =4.5  eV, which is consistent with the no sterile neutrino hypothesis with a p value of 8.0%
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