Analysis of IceCube Data

冰立方和它的前身，南极μ子和中微子探测器阵列（AMANDA），准备开始实现它们作为发现工具的全部潜力。这些中微子望远镜旨在探测和重建能量尺度远超现代加速器所能达到的超高能中微子，这些中微子望远镜将使粒子天体物理学家能够窥探宇宙中一些密度最大、能量最高的现象的核心，比如伽马射线暴和活动星系核，据信这些现象是由超大质量黑洞提供能量的。这些仪器对附近可能存在的暗物质湮灭也很敏感，探测到暗物质湮灭将对我们对宇宙组成和生命周期的理解产生深远的影响。这些仪器由深埋在南极异常清澈的冰层中的宽间距三维光电倍增管阵列组成，对各种各样的其他高能和罕见现象也很敏感。我们的目标是利用冰立方的巨大发现潜力，特别是在未来几年全面的冰立方数据采集中，分析冰立方和阿曼达探测器联合提供的丰富数据集。在此期间，我们将拥有一个比任何其他现有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大气中高能电子中微子的通量，并寻找与预期光谱的偏差，作为新物理学的证据，寻找来自瞬态源的超高能量中微子，并开发探测tau中微子的技术，这是银河系外起源的优秀指标。我们还将探索宾夕法尼亚州立大学专用高性能、高内存计算设备的使用，这可能为物理分析提供重大好处。最后，我们将与宾夕法尼亚州立大学的几位同事合作，为高中教师开发并提供一系列专业发展研讨会，以说明我们的粒子天体物理学研究与作为国家和州科学标准一部分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.