Measuring the Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section Using 8 Years of Muon Neutrino IceCube Data

POSTER

Abstract

The cubic-kilometer IceCube Neutrino Observatory has observed neutrinos with energies up to 10 PeV. High-energy neutrinos may be absorbed by the Earth during deep inelastic scattering (DIS) with nuclei. This creates a deficit of Earth-transiting neutrinos, which can be detected by IceCube. Earth's absorption of neutrinos at high energies can therefore be used to determine the neutrino-nucleon cross section as a multiple of the Standard Model DIS cross section. The DIS cross section is subject to nuclear modifications such as shadowing, and due to differences in the proton:neutron ratio for different regions of the Earth. For this analysis, we measure the muon neutrino cross section using a Poisson maximum likelihood fit for the transmission rate of through-going neutrinos. The first muon neutrino cross section measurement using 1 year of IceCube data showed results consistent with the Standard Model. Here, we show the analysis using 8 years of data, with studies into systematic uncertainties. In particular, I will present studies of the incident neutrino flux, showing how the calculated cross section depends on assumptions about the atmospheric and astrophysical neutrino flux.

Publication: [1] IceCube Collaboration, M. G. Aartsen et. al., Measurement of the multi-TeV neutrino cross section with IceCube using Earth absorption
[2] IceCube Collaboration, M. G. Aartsen et. al., Measurement of the Diffuse Astrophysical Muon-Neutrino Spectrum with Ten Years of IceCube Data
[3] IceCube Collaboration, M. G. Aartsen et. al., Observation and Characterization of a Cosmic Muon Neutrino Flux From the Northern Hemisphere Using Six Years of IceCube Data
[4] IceCube Collaboration, R. Abbasi et. al., Measurement of the high-energy all-flavor neutrino-nucleon cross section with IceCube
[5] C. A. Argüelles Delgado et. al., A Simple Quantum Integro-Differential Solver (SQuIDS)
[6] G. D. Barr et. al., Uncertainties in atmospheric neutrino fluxes
[7] M. Bustamante et. al., Extracting the Energy-Dependent Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section above 10 TeV Using IceCube Showers
[8] A. Cooper-Sarkar et. al., The high energy neutrino cross-section in the Standard Model and its uncertainty
[9] G. Cowan, Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics
[10] A. M. Dziewonski et. al., Preliminary reference Earth model
[11] A. Fedynitch et. al., Calculation of conventional and prompt lepton fluxes at very high energy
[12]S. Klein, Probing high-energy interactions of atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos
[13] S. Klein et. al., Nuclear effects in high-energy neutrino interactions
[14] S. Miarecki, Earth versus Neutrinos: Measuring the total muon-neutrino-to-nucleon cross section at ultra-high energies through differential Earth absorption of muon neutrinos from cosmic rays using the IceCube Detector.
[15] F. Riehn, The hadronic interaction model Sibyll 2.3c and Feynman scaling
[16] S. Robertson, Measuring the Neutrino Cross Section Using 8 years of Upgoing Muon Neutrinos Observed with IceCube.
[17] D. Seckel, Neutrino-Photon Reactions in Astrophysics and Cosmology
[18] B. Zhou et. al., Neutrino-nucleus cross sections for W boson and trident production

Presenters

  • Natalie R Jones

    University of California, Berkeley

Authors

  • Natalie R Jones

    University of California, Berkeley