A Search for Neutrinos from the Galactic Plane with IceCube

IceCube has discovered a flux of astrophysical neutrinos and presented evidence for the first neutrino sources, a flaring blazar known as TXS 0506+056 and the active galaxy NGC 1068. However, the sources responsible for the majority of the astrophysical neutrino flux remain elusive. Within our Galaxy, high energy neutrinos can be produced when cosmic rays interact at their acceleration sites and during propagation through the interstellar medium. The Galactic plane has therefore long been hypothesized as a neutrino source.

In this contribution, results are presented for searches of neutrino sources utilizing an improved cascade dataset that builds upon recent advances in deep learning based reconstruction methods. The resulting dataset improves IceCube's sensitivity in the southern neutrino sky and is thus particularly promising for the identification of neutrino production from the Galactic plane.