Energy Reconstruction Methods in the IceCube Neutrino Telescope

TLDR: In this article, the authors describe methods and performance of reconstructing charged particle energies and topologies from the observed Cherenkov light yield, including techniques to measure the energies of uncontained muon tracks, achieving average uncertainties in electromagnetic-equivalent deposited energy of similar to 15% above 10 TeV.

Abstract: Accurate measurement of neutrino energies is essential to many of the scientific goals of large-volume neutrino telescopes. The fundamental observable in such detectors is the Cherenkov light produced by the transit through a medium of charged particles created in neutrino interactions. The amount of light emitted is proportional to the deposited energy, which is approximately equal to the neutrino energy for v(e) and v(mu) charged-current interactions and can be used to set a lower bound on neutrino energies and to measure neutrino spectra statistically in other channels. Here we describe methods and performance of reconstructing charged-particle energies and topologies from the observed Cherenkov light yield, including techniques to measure the energies of uncontained muon tracks, achieving average uncertainties in electromagnetic-equivalent deposited energy of similar to 15% above 10 TeV.

Figures

Figure 19. Mean energy loss rate of through-going muons as a function of the muon energy at the point where it enters the detector volume. While the unfolding method reproduces well the fluctuations in the true energy loss rate above a few TeV (the similarity in 〈dE/dx〉 between “Monte Carlo truth” and “Unfolding”), these fluctuations limit the usefulness of the mean loss rate as a proxy for the energy of through-going muons.

Figure 23. Example of a simulated charged-current ντ interaction with subsequent decay producing a second cascade (also known as “Double Bang”; see table 1).

Table 1. Neutrino interactions with nucleons in IceCube. Evis denotes the median fraction of the neutrino energy deposited in any present primary lepton and in the EM-equivalent energy of a hadronic cascade at the vertex. In charged-current interactions (top section of table), nearly all the energy of the interacting neutrino is deposited in such light-producing particles. In neutral-current interactions (bottom), a large fraction of the neutrino energy leaves with the outgoing neutrino (figure 1) [5]. Note that some of Evis may escape the detector: muon tracks at these energies have lengths of multiple kilometers, and τ leptons will decay before ranging out, depositing only a fraction of Evis in the detector. Events in IceCube are observed as a combination of cascades (near-pointlike particle showers) and long tracks, as are left predominantly by muons. “Double Bang” refers to two cascades joined by a short track, a signature of charged-current ντ interactions at high energies (& 1 PeV) where the separate production and decay cascades of the τ are resolvable in IceCube. Due to the long lengths of muon tracks above 1 TeV, most observed neutrino-induced muons have production vertices outside the detector and the initial hadronic cascade is not observed.

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Energy reconstruction methods in the IceCube neutrino telescope
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Energy reconstruction methods in the IceCube
neutrino telescope
M.G. Aartsen,
b
R. Abbasi,
ac
M. Ackermann,
as
J. Adams,
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J.A. Aguilar,
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elez,
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and M. Zoll
a j
a
III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University,
D-52056 Aachen, Germany
b
School of Chemistry & Physics, University of Adelaide,
Adelaide SA, 5005 Australia
c
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage,
3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK 99508, U.S.A.
d
CTSPS, Clark-Atlanta University,
Atlanta, GA 30314, U.S.A.
e
School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, GA 30332, U.S.A.
f
Department of Physics, Southern University,
Baton Rouge, LA 70813, U.S.A.
g
Department of Physics, University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A.
h
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A.
1
Corresponding author.
2
Physics Department, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701, U.S.A.
3
Also Sezione INFN, Dipartimento di Fisica, I-70126, Bari, Italy.
4
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, U.S.A.

2014 JINST 9 P03009
i
Institut f
¨
ur Physik, Humboldt-Universit
¨
at zu Berlin,
D-12489 Berlin, Germany
j
Fakult
¨
at f
¨
ur Physik & Astronomie, Ruhr-Universit
¨
at Bochum,
D-44780 Bochum, Germany
k
Physikalisches Institut, Universit
¨
at Bonn,
Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
l
Science Faculty CP230, Universit
´
e Libre de Bruxelles,
B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
m
Dienst ELEM, Vrije Universiteit Brussel,
B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
n
Department of Physics, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan
o
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury,
Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
p
Department of Physics, University of Maryland,
College Park, MD 20742, U.S.A.
q
Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH 43210, U.S.A.
r
Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH 43210, U.S.A.
s
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen,
DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
t
Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University,
D-44221 Dortmund, Germany
u
Department of Physics, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1
v
Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universit
¨
at Erlangen-N
¨
urnberg,
D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
w
D
´
epartement de physique nucl
´
eaire et corpusculaire, Universit
´
e de Gen
`
eve,
CH-1211 Gen
`
eve, Switzerland
x
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent,
B-9000 Gent, Belgium
y
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California,
Irvine, CA 92697, U.S.A.
z
Laboratory for High Energy Physics,
´
Ecole Polytechnique F
´
ed
´
erale,
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
aa
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas,
Lawrence, KS 66045, U.S.A.
ab
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.
ac
Department of Physics and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.
ad
Institute of Physics, University of Mainz,
Staudinger Weg 7, D-55099 Mainz, Germany
ae
Universit
´
e de Mons,
7000 Mons, Belgium

2014 JINST 9 P03009
a f
Technische Universit
¨
at Munich,
D-85748 Garching, Germany
ag
Bartol Research Institute and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware,
Newark, DE 19716, U.S.A.
ah
Department of Physics, University of Oxford,
1 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3NP, U.K.
ai
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin,
River Falls, WI 54022, U.S.A.
a j
Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University,
SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
ak
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University,
Stony Brook, NY 11794-3800, U.S.A.
al
Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University,
Suwon 440-746, Korea
am
Department of Physics, University of Toronto,
Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A7, Canada
an
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama,
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, U.S.A.
ao
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, PA 16802, U.S.A.
ap
Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, PA 16802, U.S.A.
aq
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University,
Box 516, S-75120 Uppsala, Sweden
ar
Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal,
D-42119 Wuppertal, Germany
as
DESY,
D-15735 Zeuthen, Germany
E-mail: jacob.feintzeig@icecube.wisc.edu, vansanten@wisc.edu,
nwhitehorn@icecube.wisc.edu
ABSTRACT: Accurate measurement of neutrino energies is essential to many of the scientific
goals of large-volume neutrino telescopes. The fundamental observable in such detectors is the
Cherenkov light produced by the transit through a medium of charged particles created in neu-
trino interactions. The amount of light emitted is proportional to the deposited energy, which is
approximately equal to the neutrino energy for ν
e
and ν
µ
charged-current interactions and can be
used to set a lower bound on neutrino energies and to measure neutrino spectra statistically in other
channels. Here we describe methods and performance of reconstructing charged-particle energies
and topologies from the observed Cherenkov light yield, including techniques to measure the en-
ergies of uncontained muon tracks, achieving average uncertainties in electromagnetic-equivalent
deposited energy of ∼15% above 10 TeV.
KEYWORDS: Cherenkov detectors; dE/dx detectors; Neutrino detectors; Performance of High
Energy Physics Detectors
ARXIV EPRINT: 1311.4767

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions in "Energy reconstruction methods in the icecube neutrino telescope" ?

The fundamental observable in such detectors is the Cherenkov light produced by the transit through a medium of charged particles created in neutrino interactions. Here the authors describe methods and performance of reconstructing charged-particle energies and topologies from the observed Cherenkov light yield, including techniques to measure the energies of uncontained muon tracks, achieving average uncertainties in electromagnetic-equivalent deposited energy of ∼ 15 % above 10 TeV. 

Q2. What are the future works in "Energy reconstruction methods in the icecube neutrino telescope" ?

Some of these may be reduced in the future, in particular those due to modeling of light propagation and shower development. A wealth of additional information is provided by these topological reconstructions and the likelihood model described here: in addition to reconstruction of muon energies, topologies can also be used to study muon energy loss processes at very high energies and for particle identification. Work is on-going to use this information fully for high-quality muon energy reconstruction, in particular in the case of muons produced in νµ charged-current interactions, where neutrino flavor can be measured directly and all charged particles are visible. As this work on using the detailed energy loss patterns of muons to measure their energies continues, a variety of – 29 – 2 0 1 4 J I N S T 9 P 0 3 0 0 9 alternative observables can be used, optimized for different use cases.