Speaker
Dr
Tomasz Palczewski
(The University of Alabama)
Description
Neutrinos are expected to be produced in hadronic acceleration processes at the sources of extremely high-energy cosmic rays. These high-energy neutrinos should be produced in astrophysical sources like the Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), type I b/c supernovae, and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). The expectation for the neutrino flavor ratio at the source is 1: 2: 0 (nu e : nu mu : nu tau). The flavor ratio of astrophysical neutrinos measured by ground-based detectors is modified due to neutrino oscillations averaged over astronomical distances. In particular, tau neutrinos should appear in the astrophysical neutrino flux and be detectable at Earth. Thus, tau neutrino searches are crucial to better determine the flavor composition. Methods to identify high-energy tau neutrino interactions in IceCube, a cubic-kilometer neutrino detector deployed in the glacial ice at the geographical South Pole will be described. An algorithm will be presented for detecting double pulse signature in the IceCube sensor signal, which can be an indication of the tau neutrino interaction and subsequent decay of the tau lepton inside the detector. The recent results for astrophysical tau neutrinos with three years of IceCube data will be shown. Future prospects for tau neutrino detection in IceCube will be discussed.
additional information
Tomasz Jan Palczewski for the IceCube Collaboration (https://icecube.wisc.edu/collaboration/authors)
Author
Dr
Tomasz Palczewski
(The University of Alabama)
