Analysis of the Diffuse Astrophysical Flux from the Galactic Plane with 12.1 Years of IceCube Starting Tracks, Throughgoing Tracks and Cascades

TL;DR

This study analyzes 12.1 years of IceCube data across multiple detection channels to measure the Galactic diffuse neutrino flux and test models of Galactic emission, providing insights into high-energy astrophysical processes.

Contribution

It combines three detection channels to improve measurement of the Galactic neutrino spectrum and tests specific emission models with extensive data.

Findings

Detection of neutrino emission from the Galactic plane at 4.5σ significance

Measurement of the Galactic neutrino spectrum in the TeV to PeV range

Independent measurement of the isotropic cosmic neutrino flux

Abstract

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has measured an isotropic astrophysical neutrino flux through various detection channels for over 12 years. IceCube has also detected neutrino emission from the Galactic plane at the 4.5$\sigma$ significance level compared to a background-only hypothesis, testing three models of Galactic diffuse emission: Fermi-LAT $\pi^0$, KRA$_{\gamma}^{5}$, KRA$_{\gamma}^{50}$. We present an analysis combining 3 detection channels: throughgoing tracks, starting tracks and cascades. The throughgoing track sample is restricted to the northern sky to reduce atmospheric backgrounds, while the starting track and cascade samples reduce the atmospheric neutrino backgrounds in the southern sky by vetoing accompanying muons. We will use this combination of event samples from 12.1 years of data to measure the Galactic neutrino spectrum in the TeV to PeV energy range and independently for multiple galactic regions in a model independent procedure. We will simultaneously measure the isotropic cosmic neutrino flux.