IceCube: An Instrument for Neutrino Astronomy
arXiv:1007.1247 · doi:10.1063/1.3480478
Abstract
Neutrino astronomy beyond the Sun was first imagined in the late 1950s; by the 1970s, it was realized that kilometer-scale neutrino detectors were required. The first such instrument, IceCube, is near completion and taking data. The IceCube project transforms a cubic kilometer of deep and ultra-transparent Antarctic ice into a particle detector. A total of 5,160 optical sensors are embedded into a gigaton of Antarctic ice to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by secondary particles produced when neutrinos interact with nuclei in the ice. Each optical sensor is a complete data acquisition system, including a phototube, digitization electronics, control and trigger systems and LEDs for calibration. The light patterns reveal the type (flavor) of neutrino interaction and the energy and direction of the neutrino, making neutrino astronomy possible. The scientific missions of IceCube include such varied tasks as the search for sources of cosmic rays, the observation of Galactic supernova explosions, the search for dark matter, and the study of the neutrinos themselves. These reach energies well beyond those produced with accelerator beams. The outline of this review is as follows: Neutrino Astronomy and Kilometer-Scale Detectors. High-Energy Neutrino Telescopes: Methodologies of Neutrino Detection. IceCube Hardware. High-Energy Neutrino Telescopes: Beyond Astronomy. Future Projects
Revised version, in response to referee comments. 53 pages, invited review for Rev. Sci. Instruments
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Cited by in corpus (7)
- Measurement of the atmospheric neutrino energy spectrum from 100 GeV to 400 TeV with IceCube
- Search for Galactic PeV Gamma Rays with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
- Sensitivity of IceCube-DeepCore to neutralino dark matter in the MSSM-25
- Heavy-neutrino decays at neutrino telescopes
- High Energy Neutrino Emission from the Earliest Gamma-Ray Bursts
- A Robust Approach to Constraining Dark Matter from Gamma-Ray Data
- Potential sensitivities to Lorentz violation from nonbirefringent modified Maxwell theory of Auger, HESS, and CTA