The IceCube Collaboration has a strong presence at the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2015) with over 50 presentations and posters. ICRC started on July 30 and runs through August 6 in The Hague, Netherlands.
The majority of talks and posters focus on current IceCube cosmic-ray and astrophysical neutrino searches and the future of IceCube, with additional coverage of dark matter and exotic particles, gamma-ray bursts, multiwavelength messengers, neutrino oscillations, and supernova searches.
Claudio Kopper of the University of Alberta gave an overview of the current status of the field entitled “Recent results in neutrino astronomy.” The talk covered the discovery of astrophysical neutrinos and the most recent results from the ANTARES, IceCube, KM3NeT, and Baikal experiments. In addition, future detectors such as KM3NeT in the Mediterranean Sea, plans for IceCube high-energy detector upgrades, and the status of radio experiments with sensitivity to cosmogenic neutrinos were discussed.
Leif Rädel of RWTH Aachen University will present “A measurement of the diffuse astrophysical muon neutrino flux using multiple years of IceCube data” today, during the neutrino astrophysics parallel session. This talk will highlight the observation of the highest-energy neutrino, with a total energy deposited within the instrumented volume of IceCube of 2.6 +/- 0.3 PeV, which is also a lower bound on the muon and neutrino energy.
“Recent observations of atmospheric neutrinos with the IceCube Observatory,” by Paolo Desiati of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, provides a review of the IceCube results related to the observations of atmospheric neutrinos and muons. The highlight talk scheduled for August 5 will include updates on the energy spectrum, neutrino flavor oscillations, sterile neutrinos, charm quark production in the atmosphere, and the investigation of short-term temperature variations in the stratosphere with IceCube research.
Aya Ishihara of Chiba University will prepare and present the neutrino astronomy rapporteur talk on August 6. IceCube contributed talks and posters can be seen on the ICRC 2015 timetable.
Former IceCube spokesperson Tom Gaisser of the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware was awarded the Homi Bhabha Medal and Prize by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. This award recognizes active scientists who have made distinguished contributions in the field of high-energy cosmic-ray physics and astroparticle physics over an extended academic career.
Kopper and Julia Tjus of Bochum University in Germany were the recipients of the 2015 Young Scientist Prize in Astroparticle Physics from the IUPAP. Tjus won the prize for her outstanding work connecting phenomenology and experiment in neutrino astronomy while Kopper was recognized for his contribution to the analysis of the IceCube data that led to the first-ever observation of high-energy cosmic neutrinos.