Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data
We present a measurement of the high-energy astrophysical muon–neutrino flux with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The measurement uses a high-purity selection of 650k neutrino-induced muon tracks from the northern celestial hemisphere, corresponding to 9.5 yr of experimental data. With respect to...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Astronomical Society
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142025 |
| _version_ | 1811093024410697728 |
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| author | Conrad, Janet |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics Conrad, Janet |
| author_sort | Conrad, Janet |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We present a measurement of the high-energy astrophysical muon–neutrino flux with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The measurement uses a high-purity selection of 650k neutrino-induced muon tracks from the northern celestial hemisphere, corresponding to 9.5 yr of experimental data. With respect to previous publications, the measurement is improved by the increased size of the event sample and the extended model testing beyond simple power-law hypotheses. An updated treatment of systematic uncertainties and atmospheric background fluxes has been implemented based on recent models. The best-fit single power-law parameterization for the astrophysical energy spectrum results in a normalization of ${\phi }_{@100\mathrm{TeV}}^{{\nu }_{\mu }+{\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }}={1.44}_{-0.26}^{+0.25}\times {10}^{-18}\,{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}{\mathrm{sr}}^{-1}$ and a spectral index ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{SPL}}={2.37}_{-0.09}^{+0.09}$, constrained in the energy range from 15 TeV to 5 PeV. The model tests include a single power law with a spectral cutoff at high energies, a log-parabola model, several source-class-specific flux predictions from the literature, and a model-independent spectral unfolding. The data are consistent with a single power-law hypothesis, however, spectra with softening above one PeV are statistically more favorable at a two-sigma level. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:38:18Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/142025 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:38:18Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | American Astronomical Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1420252023-04-20T14:29:28Z Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data Conrad, Janet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics We present a measurement of the high-energy astrophysical muon–neutrino flux with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The measurement uses a high-purity selection of 650k neutrino-induced muon tracks from the northern celestial hemisphere, corresponding to 9.5 yr of experimental data. With respect to previous publications, the measurement is improved by the increased size of the event sample and the extended model testing beyond simple power-law hypotheses. An updated treatment of systematic uncertainties and atmospheric background fluxes has been implemented based on recent models. The best-fit single power-law parameterization for the astrophysical energy spectrum results in a normalization of ${\phi }_{@100\mathrm{TeV}}^{{\nu }_{\mu }+{\bar{\nu }}_{\mu }}={1.44}_{-0.26}^{+0.25}\times {10}^{-18}\,{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}{\mathrm{sr}}^{-1}$ and a spectral index ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{SPL}}={2.37}_{-0.09}^{+0.09}$, constrained in the energy range from 15 TeV to 5 PeV. The model tests include a single power law with a spectral cutoff at high energies, a log-parabola model, several source-class-specific flux predictions from the literature, and a model-independent spectral unfolding. The data are consistent with a single power-law hypothesis, however, spectra with softening above one PeV are statistically more favorable at a two-sigma level. 2022-04-21T18:03:04Z 2022-04-21T18:03:04Z 2022-03-01 2022-04-21T17:56:16Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142025 Conrad, Janet. 2022. "Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data." The Astrophysical Journal, 928 (1). en 10.3847/1538-4357/ac4d29 The Astrophysical Journal Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society |
| spellingShingle | Conrad, Janet Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data |
| title | Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data |
| title_full | Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data |
| title_fullStr | Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data |
| title_full_unstemmed | Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data |
| title_short | Improved Characterization of the Astrophysical Muon–neutrino Flux with 9.5 Years of IceCube Data |
| title_sort | improved characterization of the astrophysical muon neutrino flux with 9 5 years of icecube data |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142025 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT conradjanet improvedcharacterizationoftheastrophysicalmuonneutrinofluxwith95yearsoficecubedata |