Citizen science for IceCube: Name that Neutrino
European Physical Journal Plus Springer 139:6 (2024) 533
Abstract:
Name that Neutrino is a citizen science project where volunteers aid in classification of events for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, an immense particle detector at the geographic South Pole. From March 2023 to September 2023, volunteers did classifications of videos produced from simulated data of both neutrino signal and background interactions. Name that Neutrino obtained more than 128,000 classifications by over 1800 registered volunteers that were compared to results obtained by a deep neural network machine-learning algorithm. Possible improvements for both Name that Neutrino and the deep neural network are discussed.Laboratory realization of relativistic pair-plasma beams
Nature Communications Springer Nature 15:1 (2024) 5029
Abstract:
Relativistic electron-positron plasmas are ubiquitous in extreme astrophysical environments such as black-hole and neutron-star magnetospheres, where accretion-powered jets and pulsar winds are expected to be enriched with electron-positron pairs. Their role in the dynamics of such environments is in many cases believed to be fundamental, but their behavior differs significantly from typical electron-ion plasmas due to the matter-antimatter symmetry of the charged components. So far, our experimental inability to produce large yields of positrons in quasi-neutral beams has restricted the understanding of electron-positron pair plasmas to simple numerical and analytical studies, which are rather limited. We present the first experimental results confirming the generation of high-density, quasi-neutral, relativistic electron-positron pair beams using the 440 GeV/c beam at CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator. Monte Carlo simulations agree well with the experimental data and show that the characteristic scales necessary for collective plasma behavior, such as the Debye length and the collisionless skin depth, are exceeded by the measured size of the produced pair beams. Our work opens up the possibility of directly probing the microphysics of pair plasmas beyond quasi-linear evolution into regimes that are challenging to simulate or measure via astronomical observations.IceCube Search for Neutrino Emission from X-ray Bright Seyfert Galaxies
ArXiv 2406.07601 (2024)
Search for neutrino emission from hard X-ray AGN with IceCube
ArXiv 2406.06684 (2024)
Exploration of mass splitting and muon/tau mixing parameters for an eV-scale sterile neutrino with IceCube
ArXiv 2406.00905 (2024)