Abstract
We present the development and application of a generic analysis scheme for the measurement of neutrino spectra with the IceCube detector. This scheme is based on regularized unfolding, preceded by an event selection which uses a Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance algorithm to select the relevant variables and a random forest for the classification of events. The analysis has been developed using IceCube data from the 59-string configuration of the detector. 27,771 neutrino candidates were detected in 346 days of livetime. A rejection of 99.9999 % of the atmospheric muon background is achieved. The energy spectrum of the atmospheric neutrino flux is obtained using the TRUEE unfolding program. The unfolded spectrum of atmospheric muon neutrinos covers an energy range from 100 GeV to 1 PeV. Compared to the previous measurement using the detector in the 40-string configuration, the analysis presented here, extends the upper end of the atmospheric neutrino spectrum by more than a factor of two, reaching an energy region that has not been previously accessed by spectral measurements.
Highlights
Measuring the energy spectrum of atmospheric muon neutrinos is challenging due to its steeply falling behavior
In this paper we presented the measurement of the atmospheric νμ flux obtained using IceCube in the 59-string configuration
Compared to the previous measurement of the atmospheric νμ flux, which utilized the detector in the 40-string configuration, the analysis presented here extended the upper end of the atmospheric neutrino spectrum by more than a factor of two
Summary
Measuring the energy spectrum of atmospheric muon neutrinos is challenging due to its steeply falling behavior. The energy of the neutrino cannot be accessed directly, but needs to be inferred from energy dependent observables These challenges demand a sophisticated data analysis chain, considering both the separation of signal and background events and the reconstruction of the spectrum by using unfolding techniques. We present the first application of the new unfolding program TRUEE [3] on IceCube data This analysis procedure proved capable of producing a neutrino energy spectrum from 100 GeV to 1 PeV. Νμ CC interactions are relevant for the atmospheric neutrino analysis presented in this paper Data for this analysis were taken between May 2009 and May 2010, when the detector consisted of 59 strings. This configuration is referred to as IceCube-59.
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