Analysis of IceCube Data

冰立方及其前身南极Muon和中微子探测器阵列(Amanda)正准备开始充分发挥其作为发现仪器的潜力。这些中微子望远镜旨在探测和重建能量范围远远超出现代加速器所能达到的能量范围的超高能中微子，使粒子天体物理学家能够窥探宇宙中一些密度最高、能量最高的现象的核心，例如伽马射线爆发和活动星系核，据信这些现象由超大质量黑洞提供动力。这些仪器对附近可能发生的暗物质湮灭也很敏感，探测到暗物质湮灭将对我们理解宇宙的组成和生命周期产生深远影响。这些仪器由深埋在南极异常清澈的冰中的广泛分布的光电倍增管三维阵列组成，对各种其他能量和罕见现象也很敏感。我们的目标是开发冰立方巨大的发现潜力，特别是在未来几年成熟的冰立方数据采集期间，分析冰立方和阿曼达组合探测器将提供的丰富数据集。在此期间，我们将拥有一个比现有任何同类探测器大一个数量级以上的探测器。在宾夕法尼亚州立大学，我们将使用这个世界级的设备来测量高能大气中电子中微子的通量，寻找与预期光谱的偏差，作为新物理的证据，从瞬变源中寻找超高能中微子，并开发探测tau中微子的技术，这是银河系外起源的极好指标。我们还将探索使用宾夕法尼亚州立大学可用的专门的高性能、高内存计算设施，这可能会为物理分析提供显著的好处。最后，我们将与宾夕法尼亚州立大学的几位同事合作，为高中教师开发和提供一系列专业发展讲习班，以说明我们的粒子天体物理研究与作为国家和州科学标准一部分教授的核心科学概念之间的联系，并为教师提供将这项研究带入课堂的想法。

IceCube and its predecessor, the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), are poised to begin realizing their full potential as discovery instruments. Designed to detect and reconstruct ultrahigh energy neutrinos at energy scales that extend well beyond those attainable with modern accelerators, these neutrino telescopes will enable particle astrophysicists to peer into the hearts of some of the densest, most energetic phenomena in the universe, such as gamma ray bursts and active galactic nuclei, believed to be powered by supermassive black holes. The instruments are also sensitive to possible nearby dark matter annihilations, the detection of which would have a profound impact on our understanding of the composition and life-cycle of the universe. Consisting of widely-spaced three-dimensional arrays of photomultiplier tubes deeply buried in the exceptionally clear ice at the South Pole, the instruments are sensitive to a wide variety of other energetic and rare phenomena as well.We aim to exploit the considerable discovery potential of IceCube, and in particular to analyze the rich dataset that will be provided by the combined IceCube and AMANDA detectors during the next few years of full-fledged IceCube data-taking. During this time, we will have a detector that is more than an order of magnitude larger than any other existing comparable detector. At Penn State, we will use this world-class device to measure the flux of atmospheric electron neutrinos at high energies and search for deviations from the expected spectrum as evidence of new physics, to search for ultrahigh energy neutrinos from transient sources, and to develop techniques to detect tau neutrinos, which are excellent indicators of extragalactic origin. We will also explore the use of specialized high-performance, high-memory computational facilities available at Penn State, which may offer significant benefits for physics analysis. Finally, in collaboration with several colleagues at Penn State, we will be developing and offering a series of professional development workshops for high school teachers, to illustrate the connections between our particle astrophysics research and core science concepts taught as part of national and state science standards, and to give teachers ideas for bringing this research into the classroom.