Seasonal Variation of Atmospheric Neutrinos in IceCube

TL;DR

This paper investigates how atmospheric neutrino fluxes detected by IceCube vary seasonally with stratospheric temperature, providing insights into hadronic interaction models in cosmic ray air showers.

Contribution

It presents an analysis of 8 years of IceCube neutrino data correlated with atmospheric temperature, testing models of hadronic interactions in air showers.

Findings

Neutrino flux varies with atmospheric temperature.

Correlation supports existing hadronic interaction models.

Results enhance understanding of atmospheric neutrino production.

Abstract

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory detects atmospheric muon neutrinos above 100 GeV at a rate of about 100 000 per year. These neutrinos originate from decays of charged pions and kaons in cosmic ray air showers. Their flux depends on the probability of production and decay of the parent mesons, and is thus sensitive to the stratospheric temperature. Neutrino rates from 8 years of operation of the detector are correlated with the atmospheric temperature profile as measured by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS). An analysis of this correlation provides a test of models of hadronic interactions in atmospheric air showers. This analysis of neutrinos complements the analysis of the correlation of atmospheric muons with temperature that is presented in another paper at this conference.