Astrophysics and Neutrino Physics With IceCube

埋藏在南极冰盖深处的冰立方中微子天文台(ICNO)是世界上最大、最灵敏的高能中微子望远镜。它是一个10亿吨重的探测器，使用南极冰层作为高能大气和天体物理中微子的探测介质。冰立方观测到的大多数中微子的能量都在大气中微子的预期范围内，这些中微子是由来自银河系附近扇区的宇宙射线在大范围的空气骤雨中产生的粒子衰变而产生的。这些可以用来测量中微子的基本性质。在较高能量下，天体物理中微子是研究高能宇宙的关键探测器。由于其独特的性质，中微子甚至可以逃脱密集区域，不受银河系或银河系外磁场的偏转，畅通无阻地穿越充满光子的宇宙。因此，中微子提供了关于强大宇宙物体的动力学和内部的直接信息，这些物体可能是高能宇宙射线的起源：超新星、黑洞、脉冲星、活动星系核和其他极端的河外现象。这项奖励将资助该UCB小组使用IceCube数据来更好地描述这种天体物理中微子通量。他们将在比目前更高的能量下测量通量，以测试高能截止的存在。冰立方发现的天体物理中微子通量引起了各级学生和普通公众的高度关注，并引起了媒体的极大关注。这个小组将培养对这一重要问题感兴趣的本科生、研究生和博士后。该奖项将资助一系列针对普通公众和年轻学生的推广活动，通过课堂和公开演讲以及流行写作。该小组的研究将通过两次搜索，扩展IceCube对能量向上和向下的能谱的测量。第一个将使用这些数据来更准确地测量中微子的味道比：电子、Muon和tau中微子在天体物理通量中的相对比例。第二项研究将采用对能量和天顶角分布的拟合来分离常规和即时大气中微子和天体物理中微子。这种拟合应该能够足够准确地测量大气中的介子与介子的比率，从而约束空气簇射模型。它还将首次探测绕射中微子相互作用，并将提供对部分子分布函数和高能核阴影的限制。

Embedded deep in the ice cap at the South Pole, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (ICNO) is the world's largest and most sensitive high energy neutrino telescope. It is a 1 billion-ton detector using the Antarctic ice as a detection medium for high energy atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos. Most of the neutrinos observed by IceCube exhibit energies in the range expected for atmospheric neutrinos originating from decays of particles produced in extensive air showers by cosmic rays coming from nearby sectors of the Milky Way Galaxy. These may be used to measure the fundamental properties of neutrinos. At higher energies, astrophysical neutrinos are key probes of the high-energy universe. Because of their unique properties, neutrinos escape even dense regions, are not deflected by galactic or extra-galactic magnetic fields and traverse the photon-filled universe unhindered. Thus, neutrinos provide direct information about the dynamics and interiors of the powerful cosmic objects that may be the origins of high energy cosmic rays: supernovae, black holes, pulsars, active galactic nuclei and other extreme extragalactic phenomena. This award will fund this UCB group to use IceCube data to better characterize this astrophysical neutrino flux. They will measure the flux at higher energies than has currently been done, testing for the presence of a high energy cutoff. IceCube's discovery of an astrophysical neutrino flux has attracted great attention from students at all levels and from the general public and garnered much media attention. This group will educate undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs who are attracted to this important question. The award will fund a broad spectrum of outreach activities targeted at the general public and younger students, through classroom and public presentations and popular writing.This group's study will extend IceCube measurements of the energy spectrum both upward and downward in energy, through two searches. The first will use the data for a more accurate measurement of the neutrino flavor ratio: the relative proportion of electron, muon and tau neutrinos in the astrophysical flux. The second study will employ a fit to the energy and zenith angle distributions to separate conventional and prompt atmospheric neutrinos and astrophysical neutrinos. This fit should allow a sufficiently accurate measurement of the atmospheric pion:kaon ratio to constrain air shower models. It will also detect, for the first time, diffractive neutrino interactions, and will also provide constraints on parton distribution functions and nuclear shadowing at high energies.