Prof Subir Sarkar

Abstract:

The Neutrino Mass Ordering (NMO) remains one of the outstanding questions in the field of neutrino physics. One strategy to measure the NMO is to observe matter effects in the oscillation pattern of atmospheric neutrinos above $\sim 1\,\mathrm{GeV}$, as proposed for several next-generation neutrino experiments. Moreover, the existing IceCube DeepCore detector can already explore this type of measurement. We present results of a first search for the signature of the NMO with three years of DeepCore data based on two independent analyses. These analyses include a full treatment of systematic uncertainties and a statistically-rigorous method to determine the significance for the NMO from a fit to the data. For the more sensitive analysis, we observe a preference for Normal Ordering with a $p$-value of $p_\mathrm{IO} = 15.3\%$ and $\mathrm{CL}_\mathrm{s}=53.3\%$ for the Inverted Ordering hypothesis, while the experimental results from both analyses are consistent within their uncertainties. Since the result is independent of the value of $\delta_\mathrm{CP}$ and obtained from energies $E_\nu \gtrsim 5\,\mathrm{GeV}$, it is complementary to recent results from long-baseline experiments. These analyses set the groundwork for the future of this measurement with more capable detectors, such as the IceCube Upgrade and the proposed PINGU detector.

Abstract:

Solar flares convert magnetic energy into thermal and non-thermal plasma energy, the latter implying particle acceleration of charged particles such as protons. Protons are injected out of the coronal acceleration region and can interact with dense plasma in the lower solar atmosphere, producing mesons that subsequently decay into gamma rays and neutrinos at O(MeV-GeV) energies. We present the results of the first search for GeV neutrinos emitted during solar flares carried out with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. While the experiment was originally designed to detect neutrinos with energies between 10 GeV and a few PeV, a new approach allowing for a O(GeV) energy threshold will be presented. The resulting limits allow us to constrain some of the theoretical estimates of the expected neutrino flux.

Abstract:

The IceCube Collaboration has observed a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux and recently found evidence for neutrino emission from the blazar TXS 0506+056. However, the source or sources of most of the observed flux remains uncertain. Through-going muons produced by muon-neutrinos are ideal to search for point-like neutrino emission from astrophysical sources because their arrival direction can be resolved with an angular resolution $\leq1^\circ$. Here, an unbinned search for steady point-like neutrino sources is performed based on eight years of IceCube data measured between 2009 and 2017. Compared to previous searches, this search includes an improved event selection and reconstruction and it is optimized for point-like neutrino emission with the same flux-characteristics as the observed astrophysical muon-neutrino flux. The result is an improvement in flux sensitivity of ~35% assuming an $E^{-2}$ spectrum. The sensitivity on the muon-neutrino flux is at a level of $E^2 \mathrm{d} N /\mathrm{d} E = 3\cdot 10^{-13}\,\mathrm{TeV}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. No new evidence for neutrino sources is found in a full sky scan and in an a priori candidate source list. Furthermore, no significant excesses above background are found from populations of sub-threshold sources. The implications of the non-observation for potential source classes are discussed.