Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics with IceCube Data

该奖项是根据2009年美国恢复和再投资法案(公共法律111-5)资助的。冰立方中微子天文台的设计目的是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。天文台由深埋在南极冰盖中的三维光电传感器阵列组成，计划中的86个传感器中有59个现在已经部署并投入使用。我们正在使用冰立方收集的数据来搜索超高能tau中微子。当来自天体物理源的电子中微子和介子中微子在向我们传播时发生振荡时，就会产生陶中微子，但与电子中微子和介子中微子不同的是，在地球大气层中的宇宙射线空气簇射中，不会产生大量的陶中微子。因此，Tau中微子基本上被保证来自天体物理来源，即使观察到少量的Tau中微子，也会告诉我们许多关于宇宙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年初完全部署在南极。利用IceCube和DeepCore，我们将以比以往任何时候更高的能量观察中微子振荡，测量大气电子中微子的光谱，搜索银河系平面中的中微子源，并在太阳引力井中搜索暗物质。从事这个项目的学生和博士后学者在粒子天体物理、高能物理和大数据集挖掘技术方面得到了强有力的科学和教育准备。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金水奖学金等奖项，并被加州大学伯克利分校等机构的研究生课程录取。我们还开展了女性物理学和天文学项目，以帮助弥补女性在这些领域代表性不足的问题。除了粒子天体物理领域，我们还将我们与IceCube的研究用于与宾夕法尼亚州立大学其他粒子天体物理学教师联合举办的高中科学教师专业发展研讨会。

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.