2020

Posted on by Madeleine O'Keefe

IceCube submits white paper outlining plans for IceCube-Gen2, the next-level extension of the detector

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is performing admirably, but to make new physics discoveries and continue to probe the mysteries of the universe, a bigger and more sensitive detector is needed.

So, in August 2020, the international IceCube-Gen2 Collaboration submitted a white paper that outlined the need for and design of a next-generation extension of IceCube. By adding new optical and radio instruments to the existing detector, IceCube-Gen2 will increase the annual rate of cosmic neutrino observations by an order of magnitude, and its sensitivity to point sources will increase to five times that of IceCube.

Read more here.

Gen2schematic
Schematic drawing of the IceCube-Gen2 facility, including the optical array (blue-shaded region) that contains IceCube (red-shaded region) and a more densely instrumented core that will have additional sensors added in the next few years as part of the IceCube Upgrade project underway (green-shaded region). Credit: IceCube Collaboration