The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is an array of over 5,000 optical sensors embedded in a cubic kilometer of ice at the South Pole. Optical impurities in the ice affect how light travels through the IceCube detector and thus how the neutrino interactions appear. In a technical paper submitted to the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, the IceCube Collaboration presents a new method to understand the optical properties of the ice, called the SnowStorm method. […]
Introduction The presence of a population of point sources in a dataset modifies the underlying neutrino-count statistics from the Poisson distribution. This deviation can be exactly quantified using the non-Poissonian template fitting technique, and in this work we present the first application of this approach to the IceCube high-energy neutrino dataset. Using this method, we […]
While the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is mostly known for detecting neutrinos, it is also the experiment most sensitive to PeV-scale gamma rays in the Southern Hemisphere. In a recent paper by the IceCube Collaboration submitted to The Astrophysical Journal, they discuss the results of a recent search for PeV gamma rays. No evidence of PeV gamma rays were found, but they established the most stringent constraints on PeV gamma-ray emission to date. […]
It’s a slow sunrise at the South Pole, with light creeping up from the horizon little by little each day. But even as the twilight approaches and the sky brightens, it’s still dark enough to discern some auroras here and there. […]
Sometimes the moon is so bright at the Pole that it lights up the dark winter skies. The moon was setting last week, and as it left there was a slow transition to the first visible signs of sunlight along the horizon. […]
The auroras were still out in full force last week, as if lingering in their farewell before twilight steps up. […]
That’s a lot of green!—it looks like a backdrop fit for Wicked. But views like this, of strong auroras over the IceCube Lab (ICL), will soon be gone, so the winterovers are capturing the night sky while they still can. […]
The 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference took place last week at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. There were 82 IceCube contributions at this year’s meeting: two highlight talks, 36 parallel talks, and 43 posters. […]
From July 22-24, the Multimessenger Diversity Network (MDN) met at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, located at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the lead institution of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. […]
The Commission on Astroparticle Physics (C4) of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) has awarded the 2019 Yodh Prize to Francis Halzen, PI of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. […]