Abstract
A measurement of the diffuse astrophysical neutrino spectrum is presented using IceCube data collected from 2011–2022 (10.3 years). We developed novel detection techniques to search for events with a contained vertex and exiting track induced by muon neutrinos undergoing a charged-current interaction. Searching for these starting track events allows us to not only more effectively reject atmospheric muons but also atmospheric neutrino backgrounds in the southern sky, opening a new window to the sub-100 TeV astrophysical neutrino sky. The event selection is constructed using a dynamic starting track veto and machine learning algorithms. We use this data to measure the astrophysical diffuse flux as a single power law flux (SPL) with a best-fit spectral index of γ=2.58-0.09+0.10 and per-flavor normalization of ϕ_{per-flavor}^{Astro}=1.68-0.22+0.19 × 10^{-18} × GeV^{-1} cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1} (at 100 TeV). The sensitive energy range for this dataset is 3–550 TeV under the SPL assumption. This data was also used to measure the flux under a broken power law, however we did not find any evidence of a low energy cutoff.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 022001 |
| Number of pages | 27 |
| Journal | Physical Review D |
| Volume | 110 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Jul 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The IceCube collaboration acknowledges the significant contributions to this manuscript from Sarah Mancina, Jesse Osborn, and Manuel Silva. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the following agencies and institutions: USA\u2014U.S. National Science Foundation-Office of Polar Programs, U.S. National Science Foundation-Physics Division, U.S. National Science Foundation-EPSCoR, U.S. National Science Foundation-Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Open Science Grid (OSG), Partnership to Advance Throughput Computing (PATh), Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS), Frontera computing project at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, U.S. Department of Energy-National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Particle astrophysics research computing center at the University of Maryland, Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research at Michigan State University, Astroparticle physics computational facility at Marquette University, NVIDIA Corporation, and Google Cloud Platform; Belgium\u2014Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS and FWO), FWO Odysseus and Big Science programmes, and Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (Belspo); Germany\u2014Bundesministerium f\u00FCr Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP), Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association, Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY), and High Performance Computing cluster of the RWTH Aachen; Sweden\u2014Swedish Research Council, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; European Union\u2014EGI Advanced Computing for research; Australia\u2014Australian Research Council; Canada\u2014Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Calcul Qu\u00E9bec, Compute Ontario, Canada Foundation for Innovation, WestGrid, and Digital Research Alliance of Canada; Denmark\u2014Villum Fonden, Carlsberg Foundation, and European Commission; New Zealand\u2014Marsden Fund; Japan\u2014Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Institute for Global Prominent Research (IGPR) of Chiba University; Korea\u2014National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Switzerland\u2014Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Funding Information:
The IceCube collaboration acknowledges the significant contributions to this manuscript from Sarah Mancina, Jesse Osborn, and Manuel Silva. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the following agencies and institutions: USA\u2014U.S. National Science Foundation-Office of Polar Programs, U.S. National Science Foundation-Physics Division, U.S. National Science Foundation-EPSCoR, U.S. National Science Foundation-Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison, Open Science Grid (OSG), Partnership to Advance Throughput Computing (PATh), Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS), Frontera computing project at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, U.S. Department of Energy-National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Particle astrophysics research computing center at the University of Maryland, Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research at Michigan State University, Astroparticle physics computational facility at Marquette University, NVIDIA Corporation, and Google Cloud Platform; Belgium\u2014Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS and FWO), FWO Odysseus and Big Science programmes, and Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (Belspo); Germany\u2014Bundesministerium f\u00FCr Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP), Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association, Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY), and High Performance Computing cluster of the RWTH Aachen; Sweden\u2014Swedish Research Council, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; European Union\u2014EGI Advanced Computing for research; Australia\u2014Australian Research Council; Canada\u2014Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Calcul Qu\u00E9bec, Compute Ontario, Canada Foundation for Innovation, WestGrid, and Digital Research Alliance of Canada; Denmark\u2014Villum Fonden, Carlsberg Foundation, and European Commission; New Zealand\u2014Marsden Fund; Japan\u2014Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Institute for Global Prominent Research (IGPR) of Chiba University; Korea\u2014National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Switzerland\u2014Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 American Physical Society.
Keywords
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics