WoU-MMA: IceCube Data Analysis in the U.S.

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides funding for U.S. scientists to perform the scientific analysis of data taken with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (ICNO) located at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The ICNO transformed one cubic kilometer of natural ice (at the depth from 1.4 to 2.4 km) into a giant Cherenkov emission detector, thus creating the world's largest neutrino detector above energies of approximately 10 GeV. Since its completion in 2010, the ICNO has detected neutrinos with energies spanning more than six orders of magnitude, from 10 GeV to beyond 5 PeV for the first time. (GeV = one billion electron volts; TeV = one trillion electron volts; and PeV = one quadrillion electron volts.) In 2017, the ICNO detected a neutrino with an energy of 290 TeV and its origin was pinpointed (again for the first time) to a blazar at a distance of about 3.5 million light years. This detection triggered an extensive campaign involving some twenty space- and ground-based telescopes that launched a new era in multi-messenger detection. The mystique of the South Pole environment and the compelling science of IceCube are an alluring mix. Besides its extensive coverage in newspapers and publications popularizing science, IceCube has a significant presence on social media and the World Wide Web. In the next three years, focused projects include the continued development of an online video game, an activity for Zooniverse, and content for their successful high school MasterClasses. These activities will also contribute to the training of the next generation of scientists by integrating graduate and undergraduate education with the IceCube technology development, astrophysical observations, and scientific analyses of the ICNO data. The U.S. groups have established a solid and successful record of analyzing data from IceCube. This award will enable a unified analysis program which will maximize the impact of increasingly interconnected efforts. The synthesis of information from multiple astrophysical messengers is now providing a powerful new tool for probing the Universe. The highest energy messengers so far detected from the Universe are cosmic rays: high energy nuclei that are likely mostly protons. We do not yet know where or how they are accelerated to these extreme energies, but with the observation of a distant blazar in coincidence with the direction and time of a very high energy muon neutrino, neutrinos have now provided the first breakthrough in the resolution of this puzzle. The results reveal neutrinos as a key component of future multimessenger studies of the highest energy radiation reaching us from space. Thus, this award addresses and advances the science objectives and goals of the NSF's "Windows on the Universe: The Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics" program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.