Karlsruhe 2011 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 96: Neutrinoastronomie V

T 96.6: Talk

Friday, April 1, 2011, 15:15–15:30, 30.41: 105

Atmospheric muon veto performance of IceCube and DeepCore — •Olaf Schulz — MPIK, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117 Heidelberg

The IceCube neutrino detector currently approaches completion at the geographic South Pole. Since June 2010 it is taking data in a configuration that consists of 79 of 86 so called strings, which hold 60 photo-multiplier tubes within pressure glass vessels. Thus, it already now equips almost 1 km³ of the antarctic ice sheet, looking for Cerenkov-light of neutrino induced leptons. Six of the already data-taking strings are dedicated strings of IceCubes low-energy extension DeepCore. The large amount of IceCube modules that is already deployed around the densely equipped DeepCore fiducial volume enables for the first time the possibility to look for down-wards moving neutrinos. This can be done by looking for reconstructed tracks which start in the central, densely instrumented, DeepCore fiducial volume. The large background of atmospheric muons is effectively reduced by refusing events that leave detectable light in the detectors outer regions.

We will shortly review the veto technique and present preliminary performance studies of the veto in the recently taken data. This is the initial and most crucial step towards any data analysis of down-wards going neutrinos, including the search for southern hemisphere neutrino point sources.