On the relevance of prompt neutrinos for the interpretation of the IceCube signals

Mascaretti, Carlo; Vissani, Francesco

doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2019/08/004

Cited by 17 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Their contribution can be considered sub-dominant, even though still relevant, because of the presence of a clear cosmic flux which appears in the same energy region. Some indication of its relevance in a full-spectrum analysis can be found in reference [48]. Dedicated studies should be performed to better understand the relevance of the prompt component in the measured high-energy neutrino fluxes; some discrimination power probably would come from the measurement of electron neutrino spectra in VLVνT.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing cosmic ray composition models with very large-volume neutrino telescopes

Fusco

Versari

2020

Eur. Phys. J. Plus

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The composition in terms of nuclear species of the primary cosmic ray flux is largely uncertain in the knee region and above, where only indirect measurements are available. The predicted fluxes of high-energy leptons from cosmic ray air showers are influenced by this uncertainty. Different models have been proposed. Similarly, these uncertainties affect the measurement of lepton fluxes in very large-volume neutrino telescopes. Uncertainties in the cosmic ray interaction processes, mainly deriving from the limited amount of experimental data covering the particle physics at play, could also produce similar differences in the observable lepton fluxes and are affected as well by large uncertainties. In this paper we analyse how considering different models for the primary cosmic ray composition affects the expected rates in the current generation of very large-volume neutrino telescopes (ANTARES and IceCube). This is tested comparing two possible models of cosmic ray composition, but the same procedure can be expanded to different possible combinations of cosmic ray abundances. We observe that a certain degree of discrimination between composition fits can be already achieved with the current IceCube data sample, even though in a model-dependent way. The expected improvements in the energy reconstruction achievable with the nextgeneration neutrino telescopes is be expected to make these instruments more sensitive to the differences between models.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing cosmic ray composition models with very large-volume neutrino telescopes

Fusco

Versari

2020

Eur. Phys. J. Plus

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“…It is important to recall that at some 10-100 TeV one expects the onset of a new component (to date unobserved) due to the production of charmed mesons, that, having a very short lifetime, decay immediately after production leading to a spectrum as E −α ν with α ∼ 2.7 and with an approximately equal amount of electron and muon neutrinos. A very interesting possibility to emphasize and possibly observe the prompt contribution is to identify a clean sample of non-muonic neutrinos in the region of 10-few 10 of TeV, as discussed in Reference [48]. In this paper one finds a description of the model of atmospheric neutrinos, of the one of cosmic neutrinos (based on the hypothesis of pp-collisions and upgraded thanks to IceCube through-going muon data), and an assessment of their uncertainties.…”

Section: Atmospheric Neutrinosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neutrino Telescopes and High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos

2020

Self Cite

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In this review paper, we present the main aspects of high-energy cosmic neutrino astrophysics. We begin by describing the generic expectations for cosmic neutrinos, including the effects of propagation from their sources to the detectors. Then we introduce the operating principles of current neutrino telescopes, and examine the main features (topologies) of the observable events. After a discussion of the main background processes, due to the concomitant presence of secondary particles produced in the terrestrial atmosphere by cosmic rays, we summarize the current status of the observations with astrophysical relevance that have been greatly contributed by IceCube detector. Then, we examine various interpretations of these findings, trying to assess the best candidate sources of cosmic neutrinos. We conclude with a brief perspective on how the field could evolve within a few years.

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“…As such, the conventional flux is expected to be softer than its parent cosmic ray spectrum and behaves as ∼ E −3.7 . At high energies this is dominated by muon neutrinos and is largest at the horizon after having passed through the greatest atmospheric column density [75].…”

Section: Atmospheric Neutrinosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This flux is expected to follow a ∼ E −2.7 power law that is isotropic. Neutrinos from the prompt channel have yet to be measured and in this thesis the prompt flux is assumed to be negligible [75].…”

Section: Atmospheric Neutrinosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark matter neutrino scattering in the galactic centre with IceCube

McMullen¹,

Vincent²,

Argüelles³

et al. 2021

J. Inst.

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While there is evidence for the existence of dark matter, its properties have yet to be discovered. Simultaneously, the nature of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos detected by IceCube remains unresolved. If dark matter and neutrinos are coupled to each other, they could exhibit a non-zero elastic scattering cross section. Such an interaction between an isotropic extragalactic neutrino flux and dark matter would be concentrated in the Galactic Centre, where the dark matter column density is the greatest. This scattering would attenuate the flux of high-energy neutrinos, which could be observed in the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory. In this thesis, an unbinned likelihood analysis is performed to set sensitivities for the seven year medium energy starting event cascades dataset for a signal considering possible dark matterneutrino interaction scenarios. This signal would be observed as a suppression of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux in the direction of the Galactic Centre. It is shown that IceCube can set constraints on possible dark matter-neutrino interactions that are complementary to constraints set by large scale structure surveys and the cosmic microwave background. i I would like to thank my supervisor Aaron Vincent at Queen's and co-supervisor Carlos Argüelles at Harvard for their support and guidance during the course of this thesis. I have been extremely lucky to have great supervisors who patiently answer all my questions and provide invaluable advice. I would also like to thank Austin Schneider for his excellent insight with this analysis. I would like to acknowledge the support of NSERC, the IceCube collaboration, the Frontenac Cluster, and the Canadian Armed Forces in making this thesis possible. I would also like to thank all my family and friends for their support during this degree. I would especially like to thank Eric and Mikayla McMullen for editing this thesis and Simran Nerval for providing feedback for my thesis presentation. I would also like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Joe Bramante and Nahee Park for their comments and discussion during the thesis defence.

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On the relevance of prompt neutrinos for the interpretation of the IceCube signals

Cited by 17 publications

References 47 publications

Testing cosmic ray composition models with very large-volume neutrino telescopes

Testing cosmic ray composition models with very large-volume neutrino telescopes

Neutrino Telescopes and High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos

Dark matter neutrino scattering in the galactic centre with IceCube

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