Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data

IceCube Collaboration; Paul Coppin; Pablo Correa Camiroaga; Catherine De Clercq; Krijn De Vries; Nicolaas Van Eijndhoven

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac4d29

Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data

IceCube Collaboration, Paul Coppin, Pablo Correa Camiroaga, Catherine De Clercq, Krijn De Vries, Nicolaas Van Eijndhoven

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Abstract

We present a measurement of the high-energy astrophysical muon-neutrino flux with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The measurement uses a high-purity selection of 650k neutrino-induced muon tracks from the northern celestial hemisphere, corresponding to 9.5 yr of experimental data. With respect to previous publications, the measurement is improved by the increased size of the event sample and the extended model testing beyond simple power-law hypotheses. An updated treatment of systematic uncertainties and atmospheric background fluxes has been implemented based on recent models. The best-fit single power-law parameterization for the astrophysical energy spectrum results in a normalization of φ@100TeVνμ+ν¯μ=1.44-0.26+0.25×10-18GeV-1cm-2s-1sr-1 and a spectral index γSPL=2.37-0.09+0.09, constrained in the energy range from 15 TeV to 5 PeV. The model tests include a single power law with a spectral cutoff at high energies, a log-parabola model, several source-class-specific flux predictions from the literature, and a model-independent spectral unfolding. The data are consistent with a single power-law hypothesis, however, spectra with softening above one PeV are statistically more favorable at a two-sigma level.

Original language	English
Article number	50
Number of pages	14
Journal	Astrophys. J.
Volume	928
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac4d29
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The IceCube collaboration acknowledges the significant contributions to this manuscript from Philipp Fürst, Jöran Stettner, and Christopher Wiebusch. We acknowledge the support from the following agencies: USA—U.S. National Science Foundation-Office of Polar Programs, U.S. National Science Foundation-Physics Division, U.S. National Science Foundation-EPSCoR, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Open Science Grid (OSG), Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), 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, and Astroparticle physics computational facility at Marquette University; Belgium—Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS and FWO), FWO Odysseus and Big Science programmes, and Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (Belspo); Germany—Bundesministerium für 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—Swedish Research Council, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; Australia—Australian Research Council; Canada—Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Calcul Québec, Compute Ontario, Canada Foundation for Innovation, WestGrid, and Compute Canada; Denmark—Villum Fonden and Carlsberg Foundation; New Zealand—Marsden Fund; Japan—Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Institute for Global Prominent Research (IGPR) of Chiba University; Korea—National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Switzerland—Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); United Kingdom—Department of Physics, University of Oxford.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

Copyright:
Copyright 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

astro-ph.HE

Access to Document

10.3847/1538-4357/ac4d29Licence: CC BY

Abbasi_2022_ApJ_928_50Final published version, 1.97 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data",

abstract = "We present a measurement of the high-energy astrophysical muon-neutrino flux with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The measurement uses a high-purity selection of 650k neutrino-induced muon tracks from the northern celestial hemisphere, corresponding to 9.5 yr of experimental data. With respect to previous publications, the measurement is improved by the increased size of the event sample and the extended model testing beyond simple power-law hypotheses. An updated treatment of systematic uncertainties and atmospheric background fluxes has been implemented based on recent models. The best-fit single power-law parameterization for the astrophysical energy spectrum results in a normalization of φ@100TeVνμ+ν¯μ=1.44-0.26+0.25×10-18GeV-1cm-2s-1sr-1 and a spectral index γSPL=2.37-0.09+0.09, constrained in the energy range from 15 TeV to 5 PeV. The model tests include a single power law with a spectral cutoff at high energies, a log-parabola model, several source-class-specific flux predictions from the literature, and a model-independent spectral unfolding. The data are consistent with a single power-law hypothesis, however, spectra with softening above one PeV are statistically more favorable at a two-sigma level.",

keywords = "astro-ph.HE",

author = "{IceCube Collaboration} and Paul Coppin and {Correa Camiroaga}, Pablo and {De Clercq}, Catherine and {De Vries}, Krijn and {Van Eijndhoven}, Nicolaas",

note = "Funding Information: The IceCube collaboration acknowledges the significant contributions to this manuscript from Philipp F{\"u}rst, J{\"o}ran Stettner, and Christopher Wiebusch. We acknowledge the support from the following agencies: USA—U.S. National Science Foundation-Office of Polar Programs, U.S. National Science Foundation-Physics Division, U.S. National Science Foundation-EPSCoR, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Open Science Grid (OSG), Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), 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, and Astroparticle physics computational facility at Marquette University; Belgium—Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS and FWO), FWO Odysseus and Big Science programmes, and Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (Belspo); Germany—Bundesministerium f{\"u}r 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—Swedish Research Council, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; Australia—Australian Research Council; Canada—Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Calcul Qu{\'e}bec, Compute Ontario, Canada Foundation for Innovation, WestGrid, and Compute Canada; Denmark—Villum Fonden and Carlsberg Foundation; New Zealand—Marsden Fund; Japan—Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Institute for Global Prominent Research (IGPR) of Chiba University; Korea—National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Switzerland—Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); United Kingdom—Department of Physics, University of Oxford. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Copyright: Copyright 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

year = "2022",

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doi = "10.3847/1538-4357/ac4d29",

language = "English",

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AU - IceCube Collaboration

AU - Coppin, Paul

AU - Correa Camiroaga, Pablo

AU - De Clercq, Catherine

AU - De Vries, Krijn

AU - Van Eijndhoven, Nicolaas

N1 - Funding Information: The IceCube collaboration acknowledges the significant contributions to this manuscript from Philipp Fürst, Jöran Stettner, and Christopher Wiebusch. We acknowledge the support from the following agencies: USA—U.S. National Science Foundation-Office of Polar Programs, U.S. National Science Foundation-Physics Division, U.S. National Science Foundation-EPSCoR, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Open Science Grid (OSG), Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), 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, and Astroparticle physics computational facility at Marquette University; Belgium—Funds for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS and FWO), FWO Odysseus and Big Science programmes, and Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (Belspo); Germany—Bundesministerium für 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—Swedish Research Council, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; Australia—Australian Research Council; Canada—Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Calcul Québec, Compute Ontario, Canada Foundation for Innovation, WestGrid, and Compute Canada; Denmark—Villum Fonden and Carlsberg Foundation; New Zealand—Marsden Fund; Japan—Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Institute for Global Prominent Research (IGPR) of Chiba University; Korea—National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Switzerland—Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); United Kingdom—Department of Physics, University of Oxford. Publisher Copyright: © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Copyright: Copyright 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2022/3/1

Y1 - 2022/3/1

N2 - We present a measurement of the high-energy astrophysical muon-neutrino flux with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The measurement uses a high-purity selection of 650k neutrino-induced muon tracks from the northern celestial hemisphere, corresponding to 9.5 yr of experimental data. With respect to previous publications, the measurement is improved by the increased size of the event sample and the extended model testing beyond simple power-law hypotheses. An updated treatment of systematic uncertainties and atmospheric background fluxes has been implemented based on recent models. The best-fit single power-law parameterization for the astrophysical energy spectrum results in a normalization of φ@100TeVνμ+ν¯μ=1.44-0.26+0.25×10-18GeV-1cm-2s-1sr-1 and a spectral index γSPL=2.37-0.09+0.09, constrained in the energy range from 15 TeV to 5 PeV. The model tests include a single power law with a spectral cutoff at high energies, a log-parabola model, several source-class-specific flux predictions from the literature, and a model-independent spectral unfolding. The data are consistent with a single power-law hypothesis, however, spectra with softening above one PeV are statistically more favorable at a two-sigma level.

AB - We present a measurement of the high-energy astrophysical muon-neutrino flux with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The measurement uses a high-purity selection of 650k neutrino-induced muon tracks from the northern celestial hemisphere, corresponding to 9.5 yr of experimental data. With respect to previous publications, the measurement is improved by the increased size of the event sample and the extended model testing beyond simple power-law hypotheses. An updated treatment of systematic uncertainties and atmospheric background fluxes has been implemented based on recent models. The best-fit single power-law parameterization for the astrophysical energy spectrum results in a normalization of φ@100TeVνμ+ν¯μ=1.44-0.26+0.25×10-18GeV-1cm-2s-1sr-1 and a spectral index γSPL=2.37-0.09+0.09, constrained in the energy range from 15 TeV to 5 PeV. The model tests include a single power law with a spectral cutoff at high energies, a log-parabola model, several source-class-specific flux predictions from the literature, and a model-independent spectral unfolding. The data are consistent with a single power-law hypothesis, however, spectra with softening above one PeV are statistically more favorable at a two-sigma level.

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DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/ac4d29

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Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

FWOIRI11: Exploring the Extreme Universe with the (Extended) IceCube Neutrino and Cosmic Ray Observatory at the South Pole

SRP72: SRP-Onderzoekszwaartepunt: High-energy physics (HEP@VUB).

EU590: RadNu: Radio detection of the PeV - EeV cosmic-neutrino flux

Cite this

Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Projects

FWOIRI11: Exploring the Extreme Universe with the (Extended) IceCube Neutrino and Cosmic Ray Observatory at the South Pole

SRP72: SRP-Onderzoekszwaartepunt: High-energy physics (HEP@VUB).

EU590: RadNu: Radio detection of the PeV - EeV cosmic-neutrino flux

Cite this