Every year, the IceCube Collaboration sends two winterovers to the South Pole for at least 12 months. Their special duty is to keep the IceCube detector running smoothly. This year, we are delighted to have one new winterover, Josh Veitch-Michaelis, and welcome back a veteran winterover, Martin Wolf. […]
Week 44 at the Pole
Last week, IceCube’s current winterovers, John and Yuya, officially completed a full year at the South Pole, and they’re still going. Their new replacements have not yet arrived, but they are on their way. […]
Can a high-energy neutrino detector see low-energy neutrinos?
In a paper submitted recently to JCAP, the IceCube Collaboration describes a search for sub-TeV neutrino emission from astrophysical “transient” sources. This is the first transient result from IceCube to use all neutrino flavors in the 1-100 GeV energy region. In the absence of any observed sources in three years of archival IceCube data, the researchers established new limits on the volumetric rate of transients. […]
Week 43 at the Pole
It’s a harsh environment at the South Pole. And on windy days, you can really feel it—even in the photos. The flags at the ceremonial South Pole really take a beating. […]
IceCube performs new measurement of all-flavor neutrino cross section
The number of neutrinos that IceCube detects is dependent on many factors, including the “neutrino cross section”: how likely it is for neutrinos to interact with nuclei in the ice. In a paper submitted today to Physical Review D, the IceCube Collaboration reports a new cross section measurement obtained by using 7.5 years of IceCube data. This is the first such measurement to incorporate all three neutrino flavors. […]
IceCube at holiday light display in Madison, WI
The Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), a research center that is part of UW–Madison’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education and headquarters for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, is sponsoring its first display for the 32nd annual Holiday Fantasy in Lights event in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The lights are on every […]
Week 42 at the Pole
The scene outside the South Pole station—now that there’s sunlight to see by—is rather changed from how the winterovers remember it last summer. There’s quite a build-up of drifted snow around the tower end of the station. […]
IceCube at ScienceWriters 2020
Like the vast majority of conferences and meetings this year, ScienceWriters 2020 went virtual in response to the coronavirus pandemic. And instead of field trips typically organized by the host institution of the conference, organizers called on attendees to create a virtual, Zoom-able experience about the science happening in their part of the world. It was the perfect opportunity to showcase IceCube. […]
Week 41 at the Pole
Sunbathing at the South Pole? Well, why not! The sun is out and there’s a nice smooth snowbank for reclining on. […]
Week 40 at the Pole
The IceCube Lab has accumulated quite a bit of snow over the winter. And that snow, there and elsewhere, must be cleared away before planes bringing fresh crew arrive—plenty to do. […]