News – Page 79

A search for neutrinos in coincidence with the first gravitational wave event

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Silvia Bravo

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The detection of the first gravitational wave (GW) event by LIGO represents one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of recent years. After receiving the gravitational wave alert in September 2015 from the Advanced LIGO detector, the IceCube and ANTARES neutrino telescopes analyzed the data they had recorded at the same time in order to search for neutrinos that might have been emitted from the same event. Neither search identified any neutrinos that could be associated with the burst. These results set the first limits on neutrino emission from a GW transient event. […]

Week 4 at the Pole

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Jean DeMerit

Last week, the South Pole traverse finished unloading the supply of fuel it had brought, transferring it all to the tanks on station. They should be all set for winter, which is long at the South Pole and is fast approaching. […]

Week 3 at the Pole

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Jean DeMerit

When traveling to the South Pole, you have to be prepared for delays. But last week it was the station, not the travelers, that was not quite prepared—with a summer population close to its limits, it had to creatively house dozens of passengers left behind from departing planes that boomeranged. […]

Week 2 at the Pole

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Jean DeMerit

Four new arrivals reported to the South Pole ready for duty after experiencing considerable travel delays. They donned their white lab coats and got to work, performing test runs and installing cabling (looks like fun!)—and they even fit in some time to join a scheduled outreach webcast to talk about their work and travels. […]

Further limits on the GRB contribution to astrophysical neutrinos and ultra-high-energy cosmic rays

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Silvia Bravo

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Today, the IceCube Collaboration announces a new search for neutrino emission from GRBs with a first-ever search that covers all flavors and the full sky. Five events were found to have a low-significance correlation with five GRBs. Consequently, the analysis places tight constraints on current models of neutrino and ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) production in GRBs. These results have just been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. […]

Week 1 at the Pole

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Jean DeMerit

Now you see it, now you don’t. These images show the spot of the geographical South Pole, just before and after the old marker was removed. At the beginning of each year, a new marker is situated at the current location, which shifts constantly due to the movement of the ice sheet. […]

Week 52 at the Pole

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Jean DeMerit

Every New Year’s Day, they have a celebration at the Pole in which they plant a newly designed marker for the location of the ever-shifting geographic pole. The spot is repositioned annually due to movement of the polar ice sheet at about 10 meters per year. […]

Week 51 at the Pole

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Jean DeMerit

Last week saw the arrival of IceCube’s second winterover, Mack van Rossem, finally (an unusual glitch this year left IceCube with only one winterover until now). Mack got to jump right in, driving the scout for the regular December snow survey. He also arrived in time for traditional holiday events and festivities. […]

Improving dark matter searches with neutrino telescopes

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Silvia Bravo

In 2013, the IceCube Collaboration published the world’s best limits on the spin-dependent cross section for weakly interacting dark matter particles. They were derived from the non-observation of annihilation into neutrinos of dark matter gravitationally trapped by the Sun.

Now, the collaboration presents a new likelihood formalism that allows easy integration of any neutrino telescope data into analyses of dark matter theories. […]

Week 50 at the Pole

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Jean DeMerit

It was a rather busy week at the Pole. Besides people coming and going, there was the first IceCube webcast of the season, with a school from Wisconsin and two schools from Greece joining the event. An unexpected fire drill was also held last week. It turned out to be a timely drill, since the next day a genuine fire alarm sounded, triggered by a faulty oxygen sensor, not by an actual fire. […]