Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2007 APS April Meeting
Volume 52, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, April 14–17, 2007; Jacksonville, Florida
Session J11: Neutrino Astronomy |
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Sponsoring Units: DAP Chair: Jim Buckley, Washington University Room: Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront City Terrace 7 |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 10:30AM - 10:42AM |
J11.00001: Search for Ultra High Energy Neutrinos with AMANDA-II Lisa Gerhardt AMANDA-II is a large volume neutrino telescope, designed to measure the energetic neutrino flux from astrophysical sources. A search for neutrinos exceeding 1 PeV has been performed using data collected by AMANDA-II in 2000. At these energies, the Earth is opaque to neutrinos. This, combined with the limited overburden above the detector, concentrates the expected signal at the horizon. A method of separating signal from the background of high energy downward going air showers has been developed and the results are discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 10:42AM - 10:54AM |
J11.00002: High Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos Soebur Razzaque Astrophysical candidate sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays inevitably produce high-energy neutrinos in-situ and/or around their acceleration sites. While cosmic rays are scattered in the inter-galactic magnetic fields, neutrinos point back to their origin. Hence neutrinos can be used to probe astrophysical sources just like in usual photon astronomy but at much higher energies and at larger distances. Here I present the expected neutrino signals from different astrophysical objects and discuss possible applications of high-energy neutrino properties to study these intriguing sources. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 10:54AM - 11:06AM |
J11.00003: The ANTARES neutrino telescope: a status report Ralf Auer, Vincenzo Flaminio The ANTARES neutrino telescope is under construction at a depth of 2500 m in the Mediterranean sea, about 40 km off the cost of Toulon, France. It aims at the detection of very high energy neutrinos of cosmic origin, that are thought to be produced in highly energetic astrophysical processes The full detector, which is planned to be completed by the end of 2007, will include 900 photomultiplier tubes, arranged in triplets on 12 vertical strings. Each photomultiplier looks downwards, at an angle of 45 degrees to the vertical. In 2006 a major step in the construction was achieved - the ANTARES collaboration deployed the first 3 lines of the detector. An additional instrumented line, including also a few optical modules, had already been deployed in 2005. Lines 1 and 2, plus the instrumented line, have been connected and are read out through a deep-sea junction box, in turn connected to the sea-shore laboratory through a 40 km long electro-optical cable. Two additional lines are being installed and connected in January 2007. A status report of the ANTARES project and preliminary results obtained from the operation of the first lines will be presented in the talk. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:06AM - 11:18AM |
J11.00004: Event reconstruction in the ANTARES experiment Maximilien Melissas, Vincenzo Flaminio The ANTARES neutrino telescope is under construction at a depth of 2500 m in the Mediterranean sea, about 40 km off the cost of Toulon, France. It aims at the detection of very high energy neutrinos of cosmic origin, that are thought to be produced in highly energetic astrophysical processes The detector consists of 12 lines, each 450 m in height, each housing 75 photomultipliers arranged in triplets and looking dowards, at an angle of 45 degrees to the vertical. The spacing between nearby triplets is 14.5 m; nearby lines are separated by about 60 m. The first lines have been installed and connected to the sea-shore laboratory and a large amount of data have been collected. We plan to discuss the reconstruction of high energy muons generated in neutrino interactions, as well as that of atmospheric muons. Preliminary results on the angular distributions of these muons will also be shown. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:18AM - 11:30AM |
J11.00005: Observation of Atmospheric Muon Neutrinos with the IceCube 9-String Detector John Pretz The IceCube Neutrino Detector is a cubic kilometer ice-Cherenkov detector being constructed in the deep ice under the geographic South Pole. IceCube is sensitive to high-energy muon neutrinos and muon anti-neutrinos by detecting the secondary muon produced when the neutrino interacts in or near the instrumented volume. The principal source of muon neutrinos are atmospheric neutrinos which come from the decay of hadrons in cosmic-ray air showers. IceCube operated during 2006 with 9 out of 80 anticipated strings in the ice. I will briefly describe the design and current status of the detector and the major physics goals. I discuss the initial performance of the detector and describe the first evidence that IceCube can find and reconstruct atmospheric neutrinos with reasonable efficiency. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:30AM - 11:42AM |
J11.00006: Searching for Neutrinos with AMANDA-II Jessica Hodges AMANDA-II analyses include the search for neutrinos from extragalactic point sources and gamma ray bursts, as well as indirect dark matter searches. A brief summary is given on these searches and more detailed analysis is presented for the search for muon neutrinos from unresolved sources. These sources, although individually undetectable, may combine to make a detectable signal across a large sky region. A search for a diffuse flux of extraterrestrial TeV-PeV muon neutrinos was performed with AMANDA-II data collected between 2000 and 2003. Atmospheric muons and neutrinos served as the main background and calibration source for this search. An upper limit of \mbox{$E^{2}\Phi_{90\% C.L.} < 8.8 \times 10^{-8}$ GeV cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ sr$^{-1}$} was placed on the diffuse flux of muon neutrinos with a \mbox{$\Phi \sim$ E$^{-2}$} spectrum for the energy range 16 TeV to 2.5 PeV. Limits were also placed on prompt and astrophysical neutrino models with other energy spectra. A detailed systematic error study was performed to study detector response and uncertainties in the theoretical atmospheric muon and neutrino fluxes. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:42AM - 11:54AM |
J11.00007: Novel Scintillation Lattice for LENS Experiment Steven Rountree, Christian Grieb LENS is a low energy neutrino experiment that will measure the solar neutrino spectrum above 114keV which accounts for $>$95{\%} of the solar neutrino flux. It will allow us to measure the solar luminosity in neutrinos, test the current LMA-MSW oscillation model independently from solar models, probe the temperature profile of solar energy production, as well as search for sterile neutrino oscillations using an artificial neutrino source. The experimental tool is charged-current capture of the neutrino on In115, with prompt emission of an e- and delayed emission of 2 gamma rays that serve as a time/space coincidence tag. Spatial resolution of $\sim $10cm is required to exploit this signature and suppress the background due to In115 beta decay. Therefore, the detector will be optically segmented by a cubical lattice of low index foils or by an air gap between two foils. The low index layers cause total internal reflection and channel the scintillation light along the 3 main axes. This system creates a pixilated light output on the six sides of the detector which allows for digital event location instead of the usual time of flight method. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:54AM - 12:06PM |
J11.00008: ANITA: A Balloon Borne Radio Detector of Ultra High Energy Neutrinos Kimberly Palladino The ANtarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) searches for ultra high energy neutrinos interacting in the antarctic ice cap. It is a long duration balloon experiment composed of an array of broadband dual-polarized horn antennas that flew over Antarctica in December 2006 through January 2007. ANITA relies upon the Askaryan effect, in which a particle shower in medium emits coherent Cherenkov radiation at radio wavelengths, for the detection of a neutrino induced shower. ANITA is designed to detect or constrain flux models of ultra high energy neutrinos created by the interaction of ultra high energy cosmic rays with the cosmic microwave background. The science and flight performance of the ANITA instrument will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 12:06PM - 12:18PM |
J11.00009: The Search for Muon Neutrinos from Gamma-Ray Bursts with AMANDA Kyler Kuehn Since 1997, AMANDA has been searching the sky for neutrino signatures from astrophysical sources, both discrete and diffuse. Here we present the results of the search for Gamma-Ray Burst neutrinos from over 500 Northern Hemisphere bursts observed with BATSE, HETE, and other instruments of the InterPlanetary Network from 1997-2003. Our observations result in the most stringent limit on a muon neutrino flux to date; implications for several models of GRB neutrino emission are addressed. We also briefly discuss the future potential for GRB searches with km-scale detectors, such as IceCube. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 15, 2007 12:18PM - 12:30PM |
J11.00010: AURA - Next generation neutrino detector in the South Pole Hagar Landsman Neutrino astronomy may have answers to many intriguing questions such as the existence of the GZK cut-off and hadronic processes in astronomical phenomena i.e., supernovae, GRBs, and SGRs. It also holds a unique opportunity to conduct ultra-high-energy astronomy. Due to the evasiveness of the neutrinos this challenging search requires detectors with large effective volume and/or long exposure. Due to the attenuation of light in ice and water, and the cost of building and deploying optical detectors in extreme environments, complementary techniques aiming to detect radio frequency signals or acoustic waves are useful. The AURA experiment (Askaryan Under-ice Radio Array) is built upon experience and knowledge from three leading high energy neutrino experiments: RICE, ANITA and IceCube. We have designed, built and verified the functionality of three radio detector units that are scheduled to be co-deployed with the IceCube experiment in the deep Antarctic ice during the 2007 Austral summer. [Preview Abstract] |
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