Seasonal Variations of the Unfolded Atmospheric Neutrino Spectrum with IceCube

TL;DR

This paper investigates seasonal variations in the atmospheric neutrino spectrum detected by IceCube, analyzing data from 2011 to 2018 to understand how stratospheric temperature changes affect neutrino fluxes.

Contribution

It introduces the use of the Dortmund Spectrum Estimation Algorithm (DSEA) to study seasonal spectral variations in atmospheric neutrinos using IceCube data.

Findings

Observed seasonal flux differences between summer and winter.

Quantified the impact of stratospheric temperature on neutrino rates.

Provided insights into atmospheric neutrino production mechanisms.

Abstract

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a detector array at the South Pole with the central aim of studying astrophysical neutrinos. However, the majority of the detected neutrinos originates from cosmic ray interactions in the atmosphere. The rate of these atmospheric neutrinos shows a seasonal variation indicating that the rate changes with the temperature in the stratosphere. These seasonal changes of the atmospheric neutrino energy spectrum will be investigated using the Dortmund Spectrum Estimation Algorithm (DSEA). Based on results obtained from 10% of IceCube's atmospheric muon neutrino data, taken between 2011 and 2018, the differences of the measured fluxes during the Austral summer and winter will be discussed.