Detection of astrophysical tau neutrino candidates in IceCube
High Energy Physics - Experiment
2022-12-06 v3 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract
High-energy tau neutrinos are rarely produced in atmospheric cosmic-ray showers or at cosmic particle accelerators, but are expected to emerge during neutrino propagation over cosmic distances due to flavor mixing. When high energy tau neutrinos interact inside the IceCube detector, two spatially separated energy depositions may be resolved, the first from the charged current interaction and the second from the tau lepton decay. We report a novel analysis of 7.5 years of IceCube data that identifies two candidate tau neutrinos among the 60 ``High-Energy Starting Events'' (HESE) collected during that period. The HESE sample offers high purity, all-sky sensitivity, and distinct observational signatures for each neutrino flavor, enabling a new measurement of the flavor composition. The measured astrophysical neutrino flavor composition is consistent with expectations, and an astrophysical tau neutrino flux is indicated at 2.8 significance.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2011.03561,
title = {Detection of astrophysical tau neutrino candidates in IceCube},
author = {R. Abbasi and M. Ackermann and J. Adams and J. A. Aguilar and M. Ahlers and M. Ahrens and C. Alispach and A. A. Alves and N. M. Amin and K. Andeen and T. Anderson and I. Ansseau and G. Anton and C. Argüelles and S. Axani and X. Bai and A. Balagopal V. and A. Barbano and S. W. Barwick and B. Bastian and V. Basu and V. Baum and S. Baur and R. Bay and J. J. Beatty and K. -H. Becker and J. Becker Tjus and C. Bellenghi and S. BenZvi and D. Berley and E. Bernardini and D. Z. Besson and G. Binder and D. Bindig and E. Blaufuss and S. Blot and S. Böser and O. Botner and J. Böttcher and E. Bourbeau and J. Bourbeau and F. Bradascio and J. Braun and S. Bron and J. Brostean-Kaiser and A. Burgman and R. S. Busse and M. A. Campana and C. Chen and D. Chirkin and S. Choi and B. A. Clark and K. Clark and L. Classen and A. Coleman and G. H. Collin and J. M. Conrad and P. Coppin and P. Correa and D. F. Cowen and R. Cross and P. Dave and C. De Clercq and J. J. DeLaunay and H. Dembinski and K. Deoskar and S. De Ridder and A. Desai and P. Desiati and K. D. de Vries and G. de Wasseige and M. de With and T. DeYoung and S. Dharani and A. Diaz and J. C. Díaz-Vélez and H. Dujmovic and M. Dunkman and M. A. DuVernois and E. Dvorak and T. Ehrhardt and P. Eller and R. Engel and J. Evans and P. A. Evenson and S. Fahey and A. R. Fazely and S. Fiedlschuster and A. T. Fienberg and K. Filimonov and C. Finley and L. Fischer and D. Fox and A. Franckowiak and E. Friedman and A. Fritz and P. Fürst and T. K. Gaisser and J. Gallagher and E. Ganster and S. Garrappa and L. Gerhardt and A. Ghadimi and T. Glauch and T. Glüsenkamp and A. Goldschmidt and J. G. Gonzalez and S. Goswami and D. Grant and T. Grégoire and Z. Griffith and S. Griswold and M. Gündüz and C. Haack and A. Hallgren and R. Halliday and L. Halve and F. Halzen and M. Ha Minh and K. Hanson and J. Hardin and A. Haungs and S. Hauser and D. Hebecker and K. Helbing and F. Henningsen and S. Hickford and J. Hignight and C. Hill and G. C. Hill and K. D. Hoffman and R. Hoffmann and T. Hoinka and B. Hokanson-Fasig and K. Hoshina and F. Huang and M. Huber and T. Huber and K. Hultqvist and M. Hünnefeld and R. Hussain and S. In and N. Iovine and A. Ishihara and M. Jansson and G. S. Japaridze and M. Jeong and B. J. P. Jones and R. Joppe and D. Kang and W. Kang and X. Kang and A. Kappes and D. Kappesser and T. Karg and M. Karl and A. Karle and U. Katz and M. Kauer and M. Kellermann and J. L. Kelley and A. Kheirandish and J. Kim and K. Kin and T. Kintscher and J. Kiryluk and S. R. Klein and R. Koirala and H. Kolanoski and L. Köpke and C. Kopper and S. Kopper and D. J. Koskinen and P. Koundal and M. Kovacevich and M. Kowalski and K. Krings and G. Krückl and N. Kulacz and N. Kurahashi and A. Kyriacou and C. Lagunas Gualda and J. L. Lanfranchi and M. J. Larson and F. Lauber and J. P. Lazar and K. Leonard and A. Leszczyńska and Y. Li and Q. R. Liu and E. Lohfink and C. J. Lozano Mariscal and L. Lu and F. Lucarelli and A. Ludwig and W. Luszczak and Y. Lyu and W. Y. Ma and J. Madsen and K. B. M. Mahn and Y. Makino and P. Mallik and S. Mancina and I. C. Mariş and R. Maruyama and K. Mase and F. McNally and K. Meagher and A. Medina and M. Meier and S. Meighen-Berger and J. Merz and J. Micallef and D. Mockler and G. Momenté and T. Montaruli and R. W. Moore and R. Morse and M. Moulai and R. Naab and R. Nagai and U. Naumann and J. Necker and G. Neer and L. V. Nguyen and H. Niederhausen and M. U. Nisa and S. C. Nowicki and D. R. Nygren and A. Obertacke Pollmann and M. Oehler and A. Olivas and E. O'Sullivan and H. Pandya and D. V. Pankova and N. Park and G. K. Parker and E. N. Paudel and P. Peiffer and C. Pérez de los Heros and S. Philippen and D. Pieloth and S. Pieper and A. Pizzuto and M. Plum and Y. Popovych and A. Porcelli and M. Prado Rodriguez and P. B. Price and G. T. Przybylski and C. Raab and A. Raissi and M. Rameez and K. Rawlins and I. C. Rea and A. Rehman and R. Reimann and M. Renschler and G. Renzi and E. Resconi and S. Reusch and W. Rhode and M. Richman and B. Riedel and S. Robertson and G. Roellinghoff and M. Rongen and C. Rott and T. Ruhe and D. Ryckbosch and D. Rysewyk Cantu and I. Safa and S. E. Sanchez Herrera and A. Sandrock and J. Sandroos and M. Santander and S. Sarkar and S. Sarkar and K. Satalecka and M. Scharf and M. Schaufel and H. Schieler and P. Schlunder and T. Schmidt and A. Schneider and J. Schneider and F. G. Schröder and L. Schumacher and S. Sclafani and D. Seckel and S. Seunarine and S. Shefali and M. Silva and B. Smithers and R. Snihur and J. Soedingrekso and D. Soldin and G. M. Spiczak and C. Spiering and J. Stachurska and M. Stamatikos and T. Stanev and R. Stein and J. Stettner and A. Steuer and T. Stezelberger and R. G. Stokstad and N. L. Strotjohann and T. Stuttard and G. W. Sullivan and I. Taboada and F. Tenholt and S. Ter-Antonyan and S. Tilav and F. Tischbein and K. Tollefson and L. Tomankova and C. Tönnis and S. Toscano and D. Tosi and A. Trettin and M. Tselengidou and C. F. Tung and A. Turcati and R. Turcotte and C. F. Turley and J. P. Twagirayezu and B. Ty and E. Unger and M. A. Unland Elorrieta and M. Usner and J. Vandenbroucke and D. van Eijk and N. van Eijndhoven and D. Vannerom and J. van Santen and S. Verpoest and M. Vraeghe and C. Walck and A. Wallace and N. Wandkowsky and T. B. Watson and C. Weaver and A. Weindl and M. J. Weiss and J. Weldert and C. Wendt and J. Werthebach and M. Weyrauch and B. J. Whelan and N. Whitehorn and K. Wiebe and C. H. Wiebusch and D. R. Williams and M. Wolf and T. R. Wood and K. Woschnagg and G. Wrede and J. Wulff and X. W. Xu and Y. Xu and J. P. Yanez and S. Yoshida and T. Yuan and Z. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.03561},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
This article is supported by a long-form paper that discusses the high-energy starting event selection titled: "The IceCube high-energy starting event sample: Description and flux characterization with 7.5 years of data."