Observations made by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station and confirmed by telescopes around the globe and in Earth’s orbit have for the first time provided evidence for a known blazar as a source of high-energy neutrinos. These results are presented in two papers published this week in the journal Science. […]
Research
Heavy dark matter and PeV neutrinos: are they related?
The IceCube Collaboration has tested a few models of heavy dark matter and found no evidence that the high-energy neutrinos can be attributed to the decay of dark matter particles. This nondetection resulted in a new lower limit for the lifetime of dark matter particles with a mass of 10 TeV or above. The paper summarizing these results has just been submitted to the European Physical Journal C. […]
The 2018 IceCube Masterclass: engaging students around the world with IceCube scientists
The fifth edition of the IceCube Masterclass hosted over 300 students at 17 institutions in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States. […]
A boost to precision measurements in the neutrino sector
With better and larger neutrino telescopes on the horizon, researchers are now designing more efficient analysis techniques that will boost our understanding of neutrinos and advance searches for new physics, including additional neutrino flavors or new interactions. These techniques not only provide more accurate and robust results but also reduce expenses and time in computation that could limit improvements in the design of new detectors or the discovery potential of existing facilities. Details of these new techniques are given in a paper by the IceCube-Gen2 Collaboration submitted this week to Computer Physics Communications. […]
Do fast radio bursts emit high-energy neutrinos?
Although fast radio bursts’ (FRBs) progenitors are supposed to be compact and perhaps catastrophic cosmic events that may also produce neutrinos, IceCube has not detected any such neutrinos that could be associated with a known FRB in six years of data. These results are far from precluding the eventual detection of neutrinos from FRBs in the future, but they have set the best limits yet on how many are emitted. The results have been submitted today to ”The Astrophysical Journal”. […]
A first look at how the Earth stops high-energy neutrinos in their tracks
Neutrinos are abundant subatomic particles that are famous for passing through anything and everything, only very rarely interacting with matter. Now, scientists have demonstrated that the Earth stops very energetic neutrinos—they do not go through everything. The study is published online today by the journal Nature. […]
No neutrino emission from a binary neutron star merger
In a joint effort by the ANTARES, IceCube, Pierre Auger, LIGO, and Virgo collaborations, scientists have searched for neutrino emission from this merger. The search looked for neutrinos in the GeV to EeV energy range and did not find any neutrino in directional coincidence with the host galaxy. The nondetection agrees well with our expectation from short GRB models of observations at a large off-axis angle, which is most likely the case for the GRB detected in conjunction with GW170817. These results have just been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. […]
Looking for new physics in the neutrino sector
In a new search for nonstandard neutrino interactions, the IceCube Collaboration has tested theories that introduce heavy bosons, such as some Grand Unified Theories. The study resulted in new constraints on these models, which are among the world’s best limits for nonstandard interactions in the muon-tau neutrino sector. These results have just been submitted to Physical Review D. […]
Improved measurements of neutrino oscillations with IceCube
This week, the IceCube Collaboration presents a new measurement of the oscillation parameters that for the first time is competitive with the best measurements to date. These results have just been submitted to Physical Review Letters. […]
Are high-energy neutrinos also produced in the Milky Way?
The IceCube Collaboration presents a new search for neutrino emission associated with the galactic plane with seven years of IceCube data. The results, submitted to The Astrophysical Journal, are not conclusive but set new constraints on the possible galactic contribution. […]