Detection of atmospheric muon neutrinos with the IceCube 9-string detector

The IceCube neutrino detector is a cubic kilometer TeV to PeV neutrino detector under construction at the geographic South Pole. The dominant population of neutrinos detected in IceCube is due to meson decay in cosmic-ray air showers. These atmospheric neutrinos are relatively well-understood and se...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Achterberg, A, Duvoort, M.R., Heise, J., van Eijndhoven, N.J.A.M.
Other Authors: Subatomic Physics, Dep Natuurkunde
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/32657
Description
Summary:The IceCube neutrino detector is a cubic kilometer TeV to PeV neutrino detector under construction at the geographic South Pole. The dominant population of neutrinos detected in IceCube is due to meson decay in cosmic-ray air showers. These atmospheric neutrinos are relatively well-understood and serve as a calibration and verification tool for the new detector. In 2006, the detector was approximately 10% completed, and we report on data acquired from the detector in this configuration. We observe an atmospheric neutrino signal consistent with expectations, demonstrating that the IceCube detector is capable of identifying neutrino events. In the first 137.4 days of livetime, 234 neutrino candidates were selected with an expectation of 211 +/- 76.1(syst.) +/- 14.5(stat.) events from atmospheric neutrinos.