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Review of Scientific Instruments / Volume 81 / Issue 8 / INVITED REVIEW ARTICLE

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 81, 081101 (2010); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3480478 (24 pages)

Invited Review Article: IceCube: An instrument for neutrino astronomy

Francis Halzen1 and Spencer R. Klein2

1Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, 1150 University Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
2Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

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(Received 30 March 2010; accepted 5 July 2010; published online 30 August 2010)

Neutrino astronomy beyond the Sun was first imagined in the late 1950s; by the 1970s, it was realized that kilometer-scale neutrino detectors were required. The first such instrument, IceCube, is near completion and taking data. The IceCube project transforms 1 km3 of deep and ultratransparent Antarctic ice into a particle detector. A total of 5160 optical sensors is embedded into a gigaton of Antarctic ice to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by secondary particles produced when neutrinos interact with nuclei in the ice. Each optical sensor is a complete data acquisition system including a phototube, digitization electronics, control and trigger systems, and light-emitting diodes for calibration. The light patterns reveal the type (flavor) of neutrino interaction and the energy and direction of the neutrino, making neutrino astronomy possible. The scientific missions of IceCube include such varied tasks as the search for sources of cosmic rays, the observation of galactic supernova explosions, the search for dark matter, and the study of the neutrinos themselves. These reach energies well beyond those produced with accelerator beams. The outline of this review is as follows: neutrino astronomy and kilometer-scale detectors, high-energy neutrino telescopes: methodologies of neutrino detection, IceCube hardware, high-energy neutrino telescopes: beyond astronomy, and future projects.

© 2010 American Institute of Physics

Article Outline

  1. INTRODUCTION
    1. The technology
    2. The science
  2. WHY KILOMETER-SCALE DETECTORS? NEUTRINO SOURCES AND COSMIC RAYS
    1. Cosmic-ray accelerators and cosmic-beam dumps
    2. Galactic sources
    3. Sources of extragalactic cosmic rays
  3. NEUTRINO TELESCOPES: THE CONCEPT
    1. Detection probabilities
    2. Muon energy measurement
  4. FROM AMANDA TO ICECUBE: NATURAL ANTARCTIC ICE AS A CHERENKOV DETECTOR
    1. IceCube overview
    2. IceCube construction and operations
    3. The ice in IceCube
    4. Digital optical module hardware
    5. The photomultiplier and associated circuitry
    6. DOM data acquisition electronics
    7. Hardware calibrations
    8. Surface hardware, triggering, and filtering
    9. Event reconstruction
    10. Performance of IceCube
  5. OTHER ICECUBE SCIENCE
    1. Beyond astronomy
    2. Galactic supernova explosions
    3. The search for dark matter
    4. Cosmic ray physics
    5. Future higher-energy developments
  6. CONCLUSIONS

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

cosmic ray neutrinos

PACS

  • 96.50.sb

    Composition, energy spectra and interactions

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3480478

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0034-6748 (print)  
1089-7623 (online)

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Institute of Physics

For access to fully linked references, you need to log in.
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