IceCube-Gen2: A Vision for the Future of Neutrino Astronomy in Antarctica

20 pages, 12 figures. Address correspondence to: E. Blaufuss, F. Halzen, C. Kopper (Changed to add one missing author, no other changes from initial version.)20 pages, 12 figures. Address correspondence to: E. Blaufuss, F. Halzen, C. Kopper (Changed to add one missing author, no other changes from initial version.)20 pages, 12 figures. Address correspondence to: E. Blaufuss, F. Halzen, C. Kopper (Changed to add one missing author, no other changes from initial version.)The recent observation by the IceCube neutrino observatory of an astrophysical flux of neutrinos represents the "first light" in the nascent field of neutrino astronomy. The observed diffuse neutrino flux seems to suggest a much larger level of hadronic activity in the non-thermal universe than previously thought and suggests a rich discovery potential for a larger neutrino observatory. This document presents a vision for an substantial expansion of the current IceCube detector, IceCube-Gen2, including the aim of instrumenting a $10\,\mathrm{km}^3$ volume of clear glacial ice at the South Pole to deliver substantial increases in the astrophysical neutrino sample for all flavors. A detector of this size would have a rich physics program with the goal to resolve the sources of these astrophysical neutrinos, discover GZK neutrinos, and be a leading observatory in future multi-messenger astronomy programs

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory - Contributions to ICRC 2017 Part VI: IceCube-Gen2, the Next Generation Neutrino Observatory

Papers on research & development towards IceCube-Gen2, the next generation neutrino observatory at South Pole, submitted to the 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2017, Busan, South Korea) by the IceCube-Gen2 Collaboration

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory Part III: Cosmic Rays

Papers on cosmic rays submitted to the 33nd International Cosmic Ray Conference (Rio de Janeiro 2013) by the IceCube Collaboration

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory Part VI: Ice Properties, Reconstruction and Future Developments

Papers on ice properties, reconstruction and future developments submitted to the 33nd International Cosmic Ray Conference (Rio de Janeiro 2013) by the IceCube Collaboration.IceCube, the world’s largest high-energy neutrino observatory, was built at the South Pole. It consists of photomultipliers deployed 1.5-2.5 km deep into the Antarctic ice cap and detects the trajectory of charged leptons produced during high-energy neutrino interactions in the surrounding ice. The surface air shower detector IceTop located above IceCube can be used to veto the cosmic ray induced background in IceCube to measure astrophysical neutrinos from the southern sky. The implementation of the IceTop veto technique and the impact on different IceCube analyses are presented

Use of event-level neutrino telescope data in global fits for theories of new physics

We present a fast likelihood method for including event-level neutrino telescope data in parameter explorations of theories for new physics, and announce its public release as part of DarkSUSY 5.0.6. Our construction includes both angular and spectral information about neutrino events, as well as their total number. We also present a corresponding measure for simple model exclusion, which can be used for single models without reference to the rest of a parameter space. We perform a number of supersymmetric parameter scans with IceCube data to illustrate the utility of the method: example global fits and a signal recovery in the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (CMSSM), and a model exclusion exercise in a 7-parameter phenomenological version of the MSSM. The final IceCube detector configuration will probe almost the entire focus-point region of the CMSSM, as well as a number of MSSM-7 models that will not otherwise be accessible to e.g. direct detection. Our method accurately recovers the mock signal, and provides tight constraints on model parameters and derived quantities. We show that the inclusion of spectral information significantly improves the accuracy of the recovery, providing motivation for its use in future IceCube analyses

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory Part II: Atmospheric and Diffuse UHE Neutrino Searches of All Flavors

Papers on atmospheric and diffuse UHE neutrino searches of all flavors submitted to the 33nd International Cosmic Ray Conference (Rio de Janeiro 2013) by the IceCube Collaboration

Search for Neutrinos from Annihilating Dark Matter in the Direction of the Galactic Center with the 40-String IceCube Neutrino Observatory

A search for muon neutrinos from dark matter annihilations in the Galactic Center region has been performed with the 40-string configuration of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory using data collected in 367 days of live-time starting in April 2008. The observed fluxes were consistent with the atmospheric background expectations. Upper limits on the self-annihilation cross-section are obtained for dark matter particle masses ranging from 100 GeV to 10 TeV. In the case of decaying dark matter, lower limits on the lifetime have been determined for masses between 200 GeV and 20 TeV

An improved data acquisition system for supernova detection with IceCube

Papers on neutrino oscillation and supernova searches submitted to the 33nd International Cosmic Ray Conference (Rio de Janeiro 2013) by the IceCube Collaboration.With an array of 5160 photomultiplier tubes, IceCube monitors one cubic kilometer of deep Antarctic iceatthegeographicSouthPole.NeutrinosaredetectedviatheCherenkovphotonsemittedbychargedsecondaries from their interactions in matter. Due to low ice temperatures, the photomultipliers dark noise rates are particularly low. Therefore a collective rate enhancement introduced by interacting neutrinos in all photomultipliers can be used to search for the signal of galactic core collapse supernovae, even though each individual neutrino interaction is sub-threshold for forming a trigger. At present, rates of individual photomultipliers are recorded in 1.6384 ms intervals which limits the time resolution and does not allow to exploit signal correlations between the sensors. An extension to the standard data acquisition, called HitSpooling, overcomes these limitations by buffering the full raw data stream from the photomultipliers for a limited time. Thus, the full set of data can be analyzed when a supernova occurs, allowing for the determination of the average neutrino energy and the analysis of the fine time structureoftheneutrinolightcurve.TheHitSpoolingsystemwillalsosignificantlyhelpinunderstandingthenoise behavior of the detector and reduce the background induced by atmospheric neutrinos to the supernova analysis