Low energy event classification in IceCube using boosted decision trees

Abstract The DeepCore sub-array within the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a densely instrumented region of Antarctic ice designed to observe atmospheric neutrino interactions above 5 GeV via Cherenkov radiation. An essential aspect of any neutrino oscillation analysis is the ability to accurately i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Instrumentation
Main Author: Leonard DeHolton, K.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: IOP Publishing 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/16/12/c12007
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-0221/16/12/C12007
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-0221/16/12/C12007/pdf
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Summary:Abstract The DeepCore sub-array within the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a densely instrumented region of Antarctic ice designed to observe atmospheric neutrino interactions above 5 GeV via Cherenkov radiation. An essential aspect of any neutrino oscillation analysis is the ability to accurately identify the flavor of neutrino events in the detector. This task is particularly difficult at low energies when very little light is deposited in the detector. Here we discuss the use of machine learning to perform event classification at low energies in IceCube using a boosted decision tree (BDT). A BDT is trained using reconstructed quantities to identify track-like events, which result from muon neutrino charged current interactions. This new method improves the accuracy of particle identification compared to traditional classification methods which rely on univariate straight cuts.