A Search For Atmospheric Neutrino-Induced Cascades with IceCube

TL;DR

This paper reports the first search for atmospheric neutrino-induced cascades in IceCube data, developing new techniques to identify these events amidst background noise, advancing neutrino detection capabilities.

Contribution

Introduces novel reconstruction and background rejection methods enabling the first potential detection of atmospheric neutrino-induced cascades in IceCube.

Findings

Achieved a signal-to-background ratio close to 1.

Developed new event reconstruction techniques.

Set the stage for future cascade detections.

Abstract

The IceCube detector is an all-flavor neutrino telescope. For several years IceCube has been detecting muon tracks from charged-current muon neutrino interactions in ice. However, IceCube has yet to observe the electromagnetic or hadronic particle showers or "cascades" initiated by charged or neutral-current neutrino interactions. The first detection of such an event signature will likely come from the known flux of atmospheric electron and muon neutrinos. A search for atmospheric neutrino-induced cascades was performed using a full year of IceCube data. Reconstruction and background rejection techniques were developed to reach, for the first time, an expected signal-to-background ratio ~1 or better.