Hamburg 2016 – scientific programme
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 17: Neutrinoastronomie I
T 17.1: Group Report
Monday, February 29, 2016, 11:00–11:20, VMP9 SR 08
IceCube Gen2: the next-generation neutrino observatory for the South Pole — •Jakob van Santen for the IceCube collaboration — DESY, Zeuthen
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic-kilometer Cherenkov telescope buried in the ice sheet at the South Pole that detects neutrinos of all flavors with energies from tens of GeV to several PeV. The instrument provided the first measurement of the flux of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, opening a new window to the TeV universe. At the other end of its sensitivity range, IceCube has provided precision measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters that are competitive with dedicated accelerator-based experiments.
Here we will present design studies for IceCube Gen2, the next-generation neutrino observatory for the South Pole. Instrumenting a volume of more that 5 km3 with over 100 new strings, IceCube Gen2 will have substantially greater sensitivity to high-energy neutrinos than current-generation instruments. PINGU, a dense infill array, will lower the energy threshold of the inner detector region to 4 GeV, allowing a determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy. On the surface, a large air shower detector will veto high-energy atmospheric muons and neutrinos from the southern hemisphere, enhancing the reach of astrophysical neutrino searches. With its versatile instrumentation, the IceCube Gen2 facility will allow us to explore the neutrino sky with unprecedented sensitivity, providing new constraints on the sources of the highest-energy cosmic rays, and yield precision data on the mixing and mass ordering of neutrinos.