39 results match your criteria: "Particle Astrophysics Center[Affiliation]"

Searches for Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Detector.

Phys Rev Lett

August 2016

Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden.

The IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole has measured the atmospheric muon neutrino spectrum as a function of zenith angle and energy in the approximate 320 GeV to 20 TeV range, to search for the oscillation signatures of light sterile neutrinos. No evidence for anomalous ν_{μ} or ν[over ¯]_{μ} disappearance is observed in either of two independently developed analyses, each using one year of atmospheric neutrino data. New exclusion limits are placed on the parameter space of the 3+1 model, in which muon antineutrinos experience a strong Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein-resonant oscillation.

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The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) Collaboration has recently released a catalog of 360 sources detected above 50 GeV (2FHL). This catalog was obtained using 80 months of data re-processed with Pass 8, the newest event-level analysis, which significantly improves the acceptance and angular resolution of the instrument. Most of the 2FHL sources at high Galactic latitude are blazars.

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Hidden Cosmic-Ray Accelerators as an Origin of TeV-PeV Cosmic Neutrinos.

Phys Rev Lett

February 2016

Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC) and Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.

The latest IceCube data suggest that the all-flavor cosmic neutrino flux may be as large as 10^{-7}  GeV cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1} around 30 TeV. We show that, if sources of the TeV-PeV neutrinos are transparent to γ rays with respect to two-photon annihilation, strong tensions with the isotropic diffuse γ-ray background measured by Fermi are unavoidable, independently of the production mechanism. We further show that, if the IceCube neutrinos have a photohadronic (pγ) origin, the sources are expected to be opaque to 1-100 GeV γ rays.

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The dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxies (dSphs) of the Milky Way are some of the most dark matter (DM) dominated objects known. We report on γ-ray observations of Milky Way dSphs based on six years of Fermi Large Area Telescope data processed with the new Pass8 event-level analysis. None of the dSphs are significantly detected in γ rays, and we present upper limits on the DM annihilation cross section from a combined analysis of 15 dSphs.

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Effect of New Physics in Astrophysical Neutrino Flavor.

Phys Rev Lett

October 2015

Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.

Astrophysical neutrinos are powerful tools for investigating the fundamental properties of particle physics through their flavor content. In this Letter, we perform the first general new physics study on ultrahigh energy neutrino flavor content by introducing effective operators. We find that, at the current limits on these operators, new physics terms cause maximal effects on the flavor content; however, the flavor content on the Earth is confined to a region related to the assumed initial flavor content.

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High-energy cosmic neutrino puzzle: a review.

Rep Prog Phys

December 2015

Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), Madison, WI 53706, USA. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

We appraise the status of high-energy neutrino astronomy and summarize the observations that define the 'IceCube puzzle.' The observations are closing in on the source candidates that may contribute to the observation. We highlight the potential of multi-messenger analysis to assist in the identification of the sources.

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Evidence for Astrophysical Muon Neutrinos from the Northern Sky with IceCube.

Phys Rev Lett

August 2015

Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden.

Results from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory have recently provided compelling evidence for the existence of a high energy astrophysical neutrino flux utilizing a dominantly Southern Hemisphere data set consisting primarily of ν(e) and ν(τ) charged-current and neutral-current (cascade) neutrino interactions. In the analysis presented here, a data sample of approximately 35,000 muon neutrinos from the Northern sky is extracted from data taken during 659.5 days of live time recorded between May 2010 and May 2012.

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Testing the Dark Matter Scenario for PeV Neutrinos Observed in IceCube.

Phys Rev Lett

August 2015

Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC) and Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.

Late time decay of very heavy dark matter is considered as one of the possible explanations for diffuse PeV neutrinos observed in IceCube. We consider implications of multimessenger constraints, and show that proposed models are marginally consistent with the diffuse γ-ray background data. Critical tests are possible by a detailed analysis and identification of the sub-TeV isotropic diffuse γ-ray data observed by Fermi and future observations of sub-PeV γ rays by observatories like HAWC or Tibet AS+MD.

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We present the development and application of a generic analysis scheme for the measurement of neutrino spectra with the IceCube detector. This scheme is based on regularized unfolding, preceded by an event selection which uses a Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance algorithm to select the relevant variables and a random forest for the classification of events. The analysis has been developed using IceCube data from the 59-string configuration of the detector.

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Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube.

Phys Rev Lett

May 2015

Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden.

A diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos above 100 TeV has been observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Here we extend this analysis to probe the astrophysical flux down to 35 TeV and analyze its flavor composition by classifying events as showers or tracks. Taking advantage of lower atmospheric backgrounds for showerlike events, we obtain a shower-biased sample containing 129 showers and 8 tracks collected in three years from 2010 to 2013.

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Observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos in three years of IceCube data.

Phys Rev Lett

September 2014

Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden.

A search for high-energy neutrinos interacting within the IceCube detector between 2010 and 2012 provided the first evidence for a high-energy neutrino flux of extraterrestrial origin. Results from an analysis using the same methods with a third year (2012-2013) of data from the complete IceCube detector are consistent with the previously reported astrophysical flux in the 100 TeV-PeV range at the level of 10(-8)  GeV cm-2 s-1 sr-1 per flavor and reject a purely atmospheric explanation for the combined three-year data at 5.7σ.

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Measurement of the atmospheric νe flux in IceCube.

Phys Rev Lett

April 2013

Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden.

We report the first measurement of the atmospheric electron neutrino flux in the energy range between approximately 80 GeV and 6 TeV, using data recorded during the first year of operation of IceCube's DeepCore low-energy extension. Techniques to identify neutrinos interacting within the DeepCore volume and veto muons originating outside the detector are demonstrated. A sample of 1029 events is observed in 281 days of data, of which 496±66(stat)±88(syst) are estimated to be cascade events, including both electron neutrino and neutral current events.

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Can cosmic structure form without dark matter?

Phys Rev Lett

December 2006

Particle Astrophysics Center, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510-0500, USA.

One of the prime pieces of evidence for dark matter is the observation of large overdense regions in the Universe. To account for this observation, perturbations had to have grown since recombination by a factor greater than (1+z*) approximately 1180 where z* is the epoch of recombination. This enhanced growth does not happen in general relativity, and so dark matter is needed in the standard theory.

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By combining data from cosmic microwave background experiments (including the recent WMAP third year results), large scale structure, and Lyman-alpha forest observations, we constrain the hypothesis of a fourth, sterile, massive neutrino. For the 3 massless+1 massive neutrino case, we bound the mass of the sterile neutrino to ms<0.26 eV (0.

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