Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations with IceCube

Aartsen, M. G.; Abbasi, R.; Abdou, Y.; Ackermann, M.; Adams, J.; Aguilar, J. A.; Ahlers, M.; Altmann, D.; Auffenberg, J.; Bai, X.; Baker, M.; Barwick, S. W.; Baum, V.; Bay, R.; Beatty, J. J.; Bechet, S.; Tjus, J. Becker; Becker, K. -H.; Bell, M.; Benabderrahmane, M. L.; Benzvi, S.; Berdermann, J.; Berghaus, P.; Berley, D.; Bernardini, E.; Bernhard, A.; Bertrand, D.; Besson, D. Z.; Binder, G.; Bindig, D.; Bissok, M.; Blaufuss, E.; Blumenthal, J.; Boersma, D. J.; Bohaichuk, S.; Bohm, C.; Bose, D.; Boeser, S.; Botner, O.; Brayeur, L.; Bretz, H. -P.; Brown, A. M.; Bruijn, R.; Brunner, J.; Carson, M.; Casey, J.; Casier, M.; Chirkin, D.; Christov, A.; Christy, B.; Clark, K.; Clevermann, F.; Coenders, S.; Cohen, S.; Cowen, D. F.; Silva, A. H. Cruz; Danninger, M.; Daughhetee, J.; Davis, J. C.; De Clercq, C.; De Ridder, S.; Desiati, P.; De With, M.; Deyoung, T.; Diaz-Velez, J. C.; Dunkman, M.; Eagan, R.; Eberhardt, B.; Eisch, J.; Ellsworth, R. W.; Euler, S.; Evenson, P. A.; Fadiran, O.; Fazely, A. R.; Fedynitch, A.; Feintzeig, J.; Feusels, T.; Filimonov, K.; Finley, C.; Fischer-Wasels, T.; Flis, S.; Franckowiak, A.; Franke, R.; Frantzen, K.; Fuchs, T.; Gaisser, T. K.; Gallagher, J.; Gerhardt, L.; Gladstone, L.; Gluesenkamp, T.; Goldschmidt, A.; Golup, G.; Gonzalez, J. G.; Goodman, J. A.; Gora, D.; Grandmont, D. T.; Grant, D.; Gross, A.; Ha, C.; Ismail, A. Haj

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.081801

research article

Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations with IceCube

Aartsen, M. G.

•

Abbasi, R.

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Abdou, Y.

2013

Physical Review Letters

We present the first statistically significant detection of neutrino oscillations in the high-energy regime (> 20 GeV) from an analysis of IceCube Neutrino Observatory data collected in 2010 and 2011. This measurement is made possible by the low-energy threshold of the DeepCore detector (similar to 20 GeV) and benefits from the use of the IceCube detector as a veto against cosmic-ray-induced muon background. The oscillation signal was detected within a low-energy muon neutrino sample (20-100 GeV) extracted from data collected by DeepCore. A high-energy muon neutrino sample (100 GeV-10 TeV) was extracted from IceCube data to constrain systematic uncertainties. The disappearance of low-energy upward-going muon neutrinos was observed, and the nonoscillation hypothesis is rejected with more than 5 sigma significance. In a two-neutrino flavor formalism, our data are best described by the atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters vertical bar Delta m(32)(2)vertical bar = (2.3(-0.5)(+0.6)) x 10(-3) eV(2) and sin(2) (2 theta(23)) > 0.93, and maximum mixing is favored.