A clear sky last week showed off some faint sun dogs around a bright sun. Clear skies also made for fine flying conditions—the last flights to leave the Pole took off last week. The station is officially closed for the season. […]
Week 7 at the Pole
News
IceCube expands GRB searches to the southern sky
The IceCube Collaboration presents an update to previous GRB searches and broadens the search to the Southern Hemisphere using data through May 2015. The inspection of the southern sky increases the sensitivity to the highest-energy neutrinos, which are largely absorbed before reaching IceCube after sailing through the Earth. Researchers looked for neutrino emission in conjunction with prompt gamma-ray emission from 1172 GRBs and did not find any significant correlation with neutrinos detected in IceCube. These results set the strongest constraints yet on GRBs as primary sources of UHECRs. This study has just been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. […]
Multiwavelength follow-up program passes the stress test of a neutrino triplet
On February 17, 2016, IceCube detected the most significant multiplet since the start of the optical follow-up program: three neutrinos appearing within 100 seconds and consistent with a point source origin. This rare neutrino coincidence has allowed further testing of the capabilities of the IceCube follow-up program, which is able to trigger observations in near real time to search for transient sources. These results have been submitted today to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. […]
Searching for sterile neutrinos with DeepCore
The IceCube Collaboration has continued the hunt for sterile neutrinos with a search using lower energy atmospheric neutrinos. This new search looked into three years of IceCube data and again has not found any hint of a light sterile neutrino. These results have been submitted today to Physical Review D. […]
Week 6 at the Pole
Shadows are getting longer as the first large group of summer workers heads out from the Pole. Soon enough the flights will end, leaving the winter crew alone for the dark months to come. […]
Week 5 at the Pole
Winter is just around the corner, but the South Pole greenhouse doesn’t know about it. Fresh vegetables are growing in there. IceCube winterover Martin had some greenhouse training last week, and harvested a striking (but not very ripe looking) tomato. […]
Darren Grant receives prestigious prize to boost his IceCube research
Darren Grant, who leads the IceCube team at the University of Alberta, has been awarded the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). […]
Week 4 at the Pole
Doesn’t it sometimes seem that folks at the South Pole are always smiling? Well, for many, getting to spend time at the Pole—extremely cold temperatures notwithstanding—is the dream of a lifetime. Still, this group shot shows summer crew about to leave for warmer climes. Maybe that’s why they’re smiling. […]
Solar dark matter continues hiding from IceCube
The IceCube Collaboration has recently presented an update to the search for dark matter annihilation in the sun using the first three years of data with the completed detector. The search, which again did not find evidence of neutrinos originating from dark matter annihilations, has now improved these limits by a factor of 2 to 4. These are again the most stringent limits on the spin-dependent dark-matter–proton scattering for WIMP masses above 50 GeV. This study was submitted to the European Physical Journal C. […]
‘Ghost particles’ could improve understanding the universe
New measurements of neutrino oscillations, observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, have shed light on outstanding questions regarding fundamental properties of neutrinos. These new measurements of neutrinos as they change from one type to another while they travel were presented at the American Physical Society Meeting in Washington. […]