Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 APS April Meeting
Volume 54, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, May 2–5, 2009; Denver, Colorado
Session B15: High Energy Neutrinos |
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Sponsoring Units: DAP Chair: Charles Dermer, Naval Research Laboratory Room: Governor's Square 14 |
Saturday, May 2, 2009 10:45AM - 10:57AM |
B15.00001: Upper limit on the diffuse flux of UHE tau neutrinos Claudia Fracchiolla The Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest Ultra High Energy (UHE) cosmic ray detector. It provides a laboratory for studying fundamental interactions at energies well beyond those available at colliders. In addition to hadrons or photons, Auger is sensitive to ultra-high energy neutrinos in the EeV range and above. Models for new physics can be explored by observing neutrino interactions at center-of-mass energies well beyond the TeV scale. By comparing the rate for quasi-horizontal, deeply penetrating air showers triggered by all types of neutrinos with the rate for slightly upgoing showers generated by Earth-skimming tau neutrinos, any deviation of the neutrino-nucleon cross-section from the Standard Model expectation can be constrained. In this talk I will present the evaluation of the sensitivity of Auger to such ``Earth-skimming" events, the procedure to discrimine them from background, and the upper limit on the diffuse flux of tau neutrinos obtained at EeV energies from Auger data. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 2, 2009 10:57AM - 11:09AM |
B15.00002: Neutrino Point Source Searches with IceCube 22 String Configuration Michael Baker The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a $km^{3}$ detector currently under construction at the geographic South Pole. IceCube will use 4800 optical modules deployed on 80 vertical strings between 1450 and 2450 m under the ice surface to detect and reconstruct high energy neutrino-induced charged leptons. Additional strings in a dense, deep core are also being deployed to lower the energy threshold. The detection of astrophysical neutrinos can help identify the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays since other messengers, such as photons or protons, are absorbed or deflected during propagation. In its 2007-2008 science run, IceCube collected data with 22 strings deployed. An analysis was performed looking for point sources of $>$ 1 TeV neutrinos, providing the best upper limits to date. No evidence for a neutrino source was found, with the highest excess being 2.2 sigma after accounting for all trials. Searches for bursts and periodic sources (e.g. microquasars), as well as future detector performance will also be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 2, 2009 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
B15.00003: Observation of the Moon Shadow in the IceCube 40 string detector configuration Laura Gladstone IceCube is a neutrino detector at the south pole with several components, the largest of which is a kilometer-cube-scale Cherenkov detector array within the deep polar ice. In the absence of an astrophysical standard candle, IceCube can study the deficit of cosmic rays from the direction of the moon. The observation of this ``moon shadow'' in the downgoing muon flux is an experimental verification of the absolute pointing accuracy and the angular resolution of the detector with respect to energetic muons passing through. The moon shadow has been observed in the 40-string configuration of IceCube, in which half of the detectors are deployed into the ice; the full detector is expected to be completed in 2011. This is the first stage of IceCube in which a moon shadow analysis has been sucessfull. Method, results, and some systematic error studies will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 2, 2009 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
B15.00004: Antarctic surface roughness effects on radio pulse propagation Kamlesh Dookayka Rough surface features on the Antarctic continent that are commensurate with radio wavelengths can affect transmission of such waves. This is especially more pronounced for incidence near the critical angle. We simulate such behavior for radio pulses propagating through Antarctic ice and analyze time-domain effects due to various surface roughness. These have ramifications for detectability by the ANITA neutrino experiment which detects radio Cerenkov emission from within the Antarctic ice sheet. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 2, 2009 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
B15.00005: High Energy Neutrinos from Charm in Astrophysical Sources Ina Sarcevic We show that charm production enhances a flux of very high energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources with jets driven by central engines, such as gamma ray bursts or supernovae with jets. The neutrino flux from semi-leptonic decays of charmed mesons is subject to much less hadronic and radiative cooling than the conventional flux from pion and kaon decays and therefore has a dominant contribution at higher energies, of relevance to future ultrahigh energy neutrino experiments. [Preview Abstract] |
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