A radio air shower surface detector as an extension for IceCube and IceTop

The IceCube neutrino detector is built into the Antarctic ice sheet at the South Pole to measure high energy neutrinos. For this, 4800 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are being deployed at depths between 1450 and 2450 meters into the ice to measure neutrino induced charged particles like muons. IceTop is a surface air shower detector consisting of 160 Cherenkov ice tanks located on top of IceCube. To extend IceTop, a radio air shower detector could be built to significantly increase the sensitivity at higher shower energies and for inclined showers. As air showers induced by cosmic rays are a major part of the muonic background in IceCube, IceTop is not only an air shower detector, but also a veto to reduce the background in IceCube. Air showers are detectable by radio signals with a radio surface detector. The major emission process is the coherent synchrotron radiation emitted by e+ e- shower particles in the Earths magnetic field (geosynchrotron effect). Simulations of the expected radio signals of air showers are shown. The sensitivity and the energy threshold of different antenna field configurations are estimated.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Proceedings of the 30th International Cosmic Ray Conferenc

Hadronic interactions, precocious unification, and cosmic ray showers at Auger energies

At Auger energies only model predictions enable us to extract primary cosmic ray features. The simulation of the shower evolution depends sensitively on the first few interactions, necessarily related to the quality of our understanding of high energy hadronic collisions. Distortions of the standard ``soft semi-hard'' scenario include novel large compact dimensions and a string or quantum gravity scale not far above the electroweak scale. Na\"{\i}vely, the additional degrees of freedom yield unification of all forces in the TeV range. In this article we study the influence of such precocious unification during atmospheric cascade developments by analyzing the most relevant observables in proton induced showers.Comment: 16 pages latex. 4 eps figure

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

In-situ estimation of ice crystal properties at the South Pole using LED calibration data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory instruments about 1 km3 of deep, glacial ice at the geographic South Pole using 5160 photomultipliers to detect Cherenkov light emitted by charged relativistic particles. A unexpected light propagation effect observed by the experiment is an anisotropic attenuation, which is aligned with the local flow direction of the ice. Birefringent light propagation has been examined as a possible explanation for this effect. The predictions of a first-principles birefringence model developed for this purpose, in particular curved light trajectories resulting from asymmetric diffusion, provide a qualitatively good match to the main features of the data. This in turn allows us to deduce ice crystal properties. Since the wavelength of the detected light is short compared to the crystal size, these crystal properties do not only include the crystal orientation fabric, but also the average crystal size and shape, as a function of depth. By adding small empirical corrections to this first-principles model, a quantitatively accurate description of the optical properties of the IceCube glacial ice is obtained. In this paper, we present the experimental signature of ice optical anisotropy observed in IceCube LED calibration data, the theory and parametrization of the birefringence effect, the fitting procedures of these parameterizations to experimental data as well as the inferred crystal properties.</p

South pole glacial climate reconstruction from multi-borehole laser particulate stratigraphy

SN 2008D, a core collapse supernova at a distance of 27 Mpc, was serendipitously discovered by the Swift satellite through an associated X-ray flash. Core collapse supernovae have been observed in association with long gamma-ray bursts and X-ray flashes and a physical connection is widely assumed. This connection could imply that some core collapse supernovae possess mildly relativistic jets in which high-energy neutrinos are produced through proton-proton collisions. The predicted neutrino spectra would be detectable by Cherenkov neutrino detectors like IceCube. A search for a neutrino signal in temporal and spatial correlation with the observed X-ray flash of SN 2008D was conducted using data taken in 2007–2008 with 22 strings of the IceCube detector. Events were selected based on a boosted decision tree classifier trained with simulated signal and experimental background data. The classifier was optimized to the position and a “soft jet” neutrino spectrum assumed for SN 2008D. Using three search windows placed around the X-ray peak, emission time scales from 100–10 000 s were probed. No events passing the cuts were observed in agreement with the signal expectation of 0.13 events. Upper limits on the muon neutrino flux from core collapse supernovae were derived for different emission time scales and the principal model parameters were constrained. While no meaningful limits can be given in the case of an isotropic neutrino emission, the parameter space for a jetted emission can be constrained. Future analyses with the full 86 string IceCube detector could detect up to ~100 events for a core-collapse supernova at 10 Mpc according to the soft jet model

Pre-adult influences on cardiovascular disease.

The IceCube neutrino observatory pursues a follow-up program selecting interesting neutrino events in real-time and issuing alerts for electromagnetic follow-up observations. In 2012 March, the most significant neutrino alert during the first three years of operation was issued by IceCube. In the follow-up observations performed by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), a Type IIn supernova (SN IIn) PTF12csy was found 0fdg2 away from the neutrino alert direction, with an error radius of 0fdg54. It has a redshift of z = 0.0684, corresponding to a luminosity distance of about 300 Mpc and the Pan-STARRS1 survey shows that its explosion time was at least 158 days (in host galaxy rest frame) before the neutrino alert, so that a causal connection is unlikely. The a posteriori significance of the chance detection of both the neutrinos and the SN at any epoch is 2.2σ within IceCube's 2011/12 data acquisition season. Also, a complementary neutrino analysis reveals no long-term signal over the course of one year. Therefore, we consider the SN detection coincidental and the neutrinos uncorrelated to the SN. However, the SN is unusual and interesting by itself: it is luminous and energetic, bearing strong resemblance to the SN IIn 2010jl, and shows signs of interaction of the SN ejecta with a dense circumstellar medium. High-energy neutrino emission is expected in models of diffusive shock acceleration, but at a low, non-detectable level for this specific SN. In this paper, we describe the SN PTF12csy and present both the neutrino and electromagnetic data, as well as their analysis