Today is the final day of IceCube’s spring 2021 collaboration meeting. For the third time, the semi-annual meeting was held virtually due to the pandemic. With 338 registered participants, it is likely the most attended IceCube collaboration meeting ever.
Every weekday for the last two weeks, IceCube collaborators from around the world tuned into Zoom meetings for a few hours of talks and discussions about a variety of IceCube topics, including detector operations, simulations, software, surface arrays, and the latest results and analyses on cosmic rays, neutrino sources, neutrino oscillations, and other areas of research. They also reviewed the progress of IceCube’s forthcoming extensions: the IceCube Upgrade (already underway) and the planned IceCube–Gen2. Aside from the science, the meeting included a gender and science communication talk for IceCube collaborators by RWTH Aachen’s Ramona Liedtke as well as a public lecture on art and science by Dr. Tim Otto Roth, which is now viewable on YouTube.
Although the collaboration could not physically congregate at RWTH Aachen University in Germany as was originally planned, the local organizing committee in Aachen still played host. “Hosting the collaboration is a great honor, and it makes you nervous to see if everything will go well,” says Christopher Wiebusch, professor at RWTH Aachen and the local meeting host. “The great support of WIPAC staff made the meeting work very well even in its virtual form, and I enjoyed lots of great talks and exciting new results.”
The fall 2021 meeting is scheduled to take place in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.