Probing the fundamental properties of neutrinos using atmospheric neutrinos at IceCube DeepCore
Date:
Presentation mode: Online
Abstract: The IceCube Neutrino Observatory consists of one cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice at the South Pole, which is instrumented with optical modules to detect Cherenkov light produced during neutrino interactions. The central lower region of the detector, known as DeepCore, has closely spaced optical modules that allow it to detect neutrinos with energies as low as a few GeV. In this talk, I am going to discuss probing the fundamental properties of neutrinos using the GeV-energy atmospheric neutrinos detected by IceCube DeepCore. The 8-year Golden sample with only unscattered photon hits has been used to measure atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters. Another sample based on CNN reconstructions having both scattered and unscattered photon hits is used to search for neutrino decay, a phenomenon that is allowed in many grand unified theories beyond the Standard Model. While the decays of $\nu_1$ and $\nu_2$ are strongly constrained by supernova and solar neutrino data, atmospheric neutrinos offer an opportunity to search for the decay of $\nu_3$ using wide ranges of energies and baselines. In this talk, I will discuss a search for invisible decay of $\nu_3$ using the three-flavor neutrino oscillation framework in the presence of Earth matter effects.