FASER2

Abstract:

The IceCube neutrino observatory has established the existence of a flux of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, which is inconsistent with the expectation from atmospheric backgrounds at a significance greater than 5σ. This flux has been observed in analyses of both track events from muon neutrino interactions and cascade events from interactions of all neutrino flavors. Searches for astrophysical neutrino sources have focused on track events due to the significantly better angular resolution of track reconstructions. To date, no such sources have been confirmed. Here we present the first search for astrophysical neutrino sources using cascades interacting in IceCube with deposited energies as small as 1 TeV. No significant clustering was observed in a selection of 263 cascades collected from 2010 May to 2012 May. We show that compared to the classic approach using tracks, this statistically independent search offers improved sensitivity to sources in the southern sky, especially if the emission is spatially extended or follows a soft energy spectrum. This enhancement is due to the low background from atmospheric neutrinos forming cascade events and the additional veto of atmospheric neutrinos at declinations ≲-30.

Abstract:

Dijet events are studied in the proton-proton collision data set recorded at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 3.5 fb^−1 and 33.5 fb^−1 respectively. Invariant mass and angular distributions are compared to background predictions and no significant deviation is observed. For resonance searches, a new method for fitting the background component of the invariant mass distribution is employed. The data set is then used to set upper limits at a 95% confidence level on a range of new physics scenarios. Excited quarks with masses below 6.0 TeV are excluded, and limits are set on quantum black holes, heavy W' bosons, W* bosons, and a range of masses and couplings in a Z' dark matter mediator model. Model-independent limits on signals with a Gaussian shape are also set, using a new approach allowing factorization of physics and detector effects. From the angular distributions, a scale of new physics in contact interaction models is excluded for scenarios with either constructive or destructive interference. These results represent a substantial improvement over those obtained previously with lower integrated luminosity.

Abstract:

High-energy neutrinos, being neutral and weakly interacting particles, are powerful probes of the sites of production and acceleration of cosmic rays. The challenging discovery of cosmic neutrinos by the IceCube Collaboration has moved the field closer to realizing the potential of neutrino astronomy. Meanwhile, ground-based cosmic ray detectors like the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array have reached an unprecedented accuracy in the determination of the features of the cosmic rays at the highest energies. We report on a collaborative effort between IceCube, the Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array to identify directional correlations between the arrival directions of the highest-energy cosmic rays from both hemispheres and of the most probable cosmic neutrino events detected by IceCube. We describe the updated results of two independent searches using seven years of IceCube neutrino data and the most energetic cosmicray events detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array. The directional correlation found between UHECRs and neutrinos is reported with a significance of ~ 2σ.

Abstract:

During the past two decades, experiments in both the northern and southern hemispheres have observed a small but measurable energy-dependent sidereal anisotropy in the arrival direction distribution of Galactic cosmic rays with relative intensities at the level of one per mille. Individually, these measurements are restricted by limited sky coverage, and so the power spectrum of the anisotropy obtained from any one measurement displays a systematic correlation between different multipole modes $C_\ell$. We present the results of a joint analysis of the anisotropy on all angular scales using cosmic-ray data collected during 336 days of operation of the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory (located at 19$^\circ$ N) and 5 years of data taking from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (located at 90$^\circ$ S) The results include a combined sky map and an all-sky power spectrum in the overlapping energy range of the two experiments at around 10 TeV. We describe the methods used to combine the IceCube and HAWC data, address the individual detector systematics, and study the region of overlapping field of view between the two observatories.