Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics with IceCube Data

使用 IceCube 数据进行中微子物理和天体物理

• 批准号: 0855486
• 负责人: Douglas Cowen
• 金额: $ 98.6万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2013-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0855486&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Neutrino; Physics; Astrophysics; IceCube; Data

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The IceCube neutrino observatory was designed to detect high energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources and to search for indirect evidence of dark matter in the solar neighborhood. The observatory consists of a three dimensional array of photosensors buried deep in the Antarctic ice cap, with 59 of the planned 86 strings of sensors now deployed and operational. We are using data collected by IceCube to search for ultrahigh energy tau neutrinos. Tau neutrinos are produced when electron and muon neutrinos from astrophysical sources oscillate as they travel to us, but unlike electron and muon neutrinos, tau neutrinos are not produced in significant numbers in cosmic ray air showers in the Earth's atmosphere. Tau neutrinos are thus essentially guaranteed to come from astrophysical sources, and observing even a few tau neutrinos would tell us a great deal about astrophysical accelerators of cosmic rays and neutrinos. We have led the design effort for the new DeepCore extension to IceCube, which will be completely deployed at the South Pole in early 2010. Using IceCube and DeepCore, we will observe neutrino oscillations at higher energies than ever before, measure the spectrum of atmospheric electron neutrinos, search for sources of neutrinos in the Galactic plane, and search for dark matter in the Sun's gravitational well. Students and postdoctoral scholars working on this project receive strong scientific and educational preparation in the techniques of particle astrophysics, high energy physics, and the mining of large data sets. Our graduate and undergraduate students work closely with scientists around the world, fostering international scientific collaboration. Undergraduate students conducting research with us have received awards such as Goldwater Scholarships and are enrolled in graduate programs at institutions such as UC Berkeley. We also run the Physics and Astronomy for Women program to help remedy the under representation of women in these fields. Beyond the field of particle astrophysics, we use our research with IceCube in a professional development workshop for high school science teachers, offered in conjunction with other particle astrophysics faculty at Penn State.

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。冰立方中微子天文台旨在探测来自天体物理源的高能中微子，并寻找太阳附近暗物质的间接证据。该观测站由深埋在南极冰盖中的三维光电传感器阵列组成，计划的86串传感器中有59串现已部署并投入使用。 我们正在使用IceCube收集的数据来寻找能量为100的τ中微子。当电子和μ子中微子从天体物理学来源向我们传播时产生振荡，但与电子和μ子中微子不同，τ中微子不会在地球大气层的宇宙射线空气簇射中大量产生。因此，τ中微子基本上肯定来自天体物理学来源，即使观测到几个τ中微子也会告诉我们很多关于宇宙射线和中微子的天体物理加速器的信息。 我们领导了冰立方新的DeepCore扩展的设计工作，该扩展将于2010年初在南极完全部署。使用IceCube和DeepCore，我们将以比以往更高的能量观察中微子振荡，测量大气电子中微子的光谱，在银河系平面中寻找中微子源，并在太阳的引力阱中寻找暗物质。从事该项目的学生和博士后学者在粒子天体物理学，高能物理学和大型数据集挖掘技术方面获得了强大的科学和教育准备。我们的研究生和本科生与世界各地的科学家密切合作，促进国际科学合作。与我们一起进行研究的本科生获得了Goldwater奖学金等奖项，并在加州大学伯克利分校等机构就读研究生课程。我们还开展了妇女物理学和天文学方案，以帮助纠正妇女在这些领域代表性不足的问题。 在粒子天体物理学领域之外，我们将我们的研究与IceCube一起用于高中科学教师的专业发展研讨会，该研讨会与宾夕法尼亚州立大学的其他粒子天体物理学教师一起提供。