The AMANDA Neutrino Telescope: Principle of Operation and First Results

AMANDA is a high-energy neutrino telescope presently under construction at the geographical South Pole. In the Antarctic summer 1995/96, an array of 80 optical modules (OMs) arranged on 4 strings (AMANDA-B4) was deployed at depths between 1.5 and 2 km. In this paper we describe the design and performance of the AMANDA-B4 prototype, based on data collected between February and November 1996. Monte Carlo simulations of the detector response to down-going atmospheric muon tracks show that the global behavior of the detector is understood. We describe the data analysis method and present first results on atmospheric muon reconstruction and separation of neutrino candidates. The AMANDA array was upgraded with 216 OMs on 6 new strings in 1996/97 (AMANDA-B10), and 122 additional OMs on 3 strings in 1997/98.Comment: 36 pages, 23 figures, submitted to Astroparticle Physic

Limits to the muon flux from WIMP annihilation in the center of the Earth with the AMANDA detector

A search for nearly vertical up-going muon-neutrinos from neutralino annihilations in the center of the Earth has been performed with the AMANDA-B10 neutrino detector. The data sample collected in 130.1 days of live-time in 1997, ~10^9 events, has been analyzed for this search. No excess over the expected atmospheric neutrino background is oberved. An upper limit at 90% confidence level on the annihilation rate of neutralinos in the center of the Earth is obtained as a function of the neutralino mass in the range 100 GeV-5000 GeV, as well as the corresponding muon flux limit.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. Version accepted for publication in Physical Review

IceCube - the next generation neutrino telescope at the South Pole

IceCube is a large neutrino telescope of the next generation to be constructed in the Antarctic Ice Sheet near the South Pole. We present the conceptual design and the sensitivity of the IceCube detector to predicted fluxes of neutrinos, both atmospheric and extra-terrestrial. A complete simulation of the detector design has been used to study the detector's capability to search for neutrinos from sources such as active galaxies, and gamma-ray bursts.Comment: 8 pages, to be published with the proceedings of the XXth International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics, Munich 200

Search for Point Sources of High Energy Neutrinos with AMANDA

This paper describes the search for astronomical sources of high-energy neutrinos using the AMANDA-B10 detector, an array of 302 photomultiplier tubes, used for the detection of Cherenkov light from upward traveling neutrino-induced muons, buried deep in ice at the South Pole. The absolute pointing accuracy and angular resolution were studied by using coincident events between the AMANDA detector and two independent telescopes on the surface, the GASP air Cherenkov telescope and the SPASE extensive air shower array. Using data collected from April to October of 1997 (130.1 days of livetime), a general survey of the northern hemisphere revealed no statistically significant excess of events from any direction. The sensitivity for a flux of muon neutrinos is based on the effective detection area for through-going muons. Averaged over the Northern sky, the effective detection area exceeds 10,000 m^2 for E_{mu} ~ 10 TeV. Neutrinos generated in the atmosphere by cosmic ray interactions were used to verify the predicted performance of the detector. For a source with a differential energy spectrum proportional to E_{nu}^{-2} and declination larger than +40 degrees, we obtain E^2(dN_{nu}/dE) <= 10^{-6}GeVcm^{-2}s^{-1} for an energy threshold of 10 GeV.Comment: 46 pages, 22 figures, 4 tables, submitted to Ap.

Muon Track Reconstruction and Data Selection Techniques in AMANDA

The Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) is a high-energy neutrino telescope operating at the geographic South Pole. It is a lattice of photo-multiplier tubes buried deep in the polar ice between 1500m and 2000m. The primary goal of this detector is to discover astrophysical sources of high energy neutrinos. A high-energy muon neutrino coming through the earth from the Northern Hemisphere can be identified by the secondary muon moving upward through the detector. The muon tracks are reconstructed with a maximum likelihood method. It models the arrival times and amplitudes of Cherenkov photons registered by the photo-multipliers. This paper describes the different methods of reconstruction, which have been successfully implemented within AMANDA. Strategies for optimizing the reconstruction performance and rejecting background are presented. For a typical analysis procedure the direction of tracks are reconstructed with about 2 degree accuracy.Comment: 40 pages, 16 Postscript figures, uses elsart.st

Results from the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA)

We show new results from both the older and newer incarnations of AMANDA (AMANDA-B10 and AMANDA-II, respectively). These results demonstrate that AMANDA is a functioning, multipurpose detector with significant physics and astrophysics reach. They include a new higher-statistics measurement of the atmospheric muon neutrino flux and preliminary results from searches for a variety of sources of ultrahigh energy neutrinos: generic point sources, gamma-ray bursters and diffuse sources producing muons in the detector, and diffuse sources producing electromagnetic or hadronic showers in or near the detector.Comment: Invited talk at the XXth International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2002), Munich, Germany, May 25-30, 200

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory: Instrumentation and Online Systems

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.Comment: 83 pages, 50 figures; updated with minor changes from journal review and proofin

On the selection of AGN neutrino source candidates for a source stacking analysis with neutrino telescopes

The sensitivity of a search for sources of TeV neutrinos can be improved by grouping potential sources together into generic classes in a procedure that is known as source stacking. In this paper, we define catalogs of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and use them to perform a source stacking analysis. The grouping of AGN into classes is done in two steps: first, AGN classes are defined, then, sources to be stacked are selected assuming that a potential neutrino flux is linearly correlated with the photon luminosity in a certain energy band (radio, IR, optical, keV, GeV, TeV). Lacking any secure detailed knowledge on neutrino production in AGN, this correlation is motivated by hadronic AGN models, as briefly reviewed in this paper. The source stacking search for neutrinos from generic AGN classes is illustrated using the data collected by the AMANDA-II high energy neutrino detector during the year 2000. No significant excess for any of the suggested groups was found.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures, accepted by Astroparticle Physic

Limits on the high-energy gamma and neutrino fluxes from the SGR 1806-20 giant flare of December 27th, 2004 with the AMANDA-II detector

On December 27th 2004, a giant gamma flare from the Soft Gamma-ray Repeater 1806-20 saturated many satellite gamma-ray detectors. This event was by more than two orders of magnitude the brightest cosmic transient ever observed. If the gamma emission extends up to TeV energies with a hard power law energy spectrum, photo-produced muons could be observed in surface and underground arrays. Moreover, high-energy neutrinos could have been produced during the SGR giant flare if there were substantial baryonic outflow from the magnetar. These high-energy neutrinos would have also produced muons in an underground array. AMANDA-II was used to search for downgoing muons indicative of high-energy gammas and/or neutrinos. The data revealed no significant signal. The upper limit on the gamma flux at 90% CL is dN/dE < 0.05 (0.5) TeV^-1 m^-2 s^-1 for gamma=-1.47 (-2). Similarly, we set limits on the normalization constant of the high-energy neutrino emission of 0.4 (6.1) TeV^-1 m^-2 s^-1 for gamma=-1.47 (-2).Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Detection of Atmospheric Muon Neutrinos with the IceCube 9-String Detector

The IceCube neutrino detector is a cubic kilometer TeV to PeV neutrino detector under construction at the geographic South Pole. The dominant population of neutrinos detected in IceCube is due to meson decay in cosmic-ray air showers. These atmospheric neutrinos are relatively well-understood and serve as a calibration and verification tool for the new detector. In 2006, the detector was approximately 10% completed, and we report on data acquired from the detector in this configuration. We observe an atmospheric neutrino signal consistent with expectations, demonstrating that the IceCube detector is capable of identifying neutrino events. In the first 137.4 days of livetime, 234 neutrino candidates were selected with an expectation of 211 +/- 76.1(syst.) +/- 14.5(stat.) events from atmospheric neutrinos