Neutrinos from our Galaxy
Anatoli Fedynitch
IceCube collaboration
SCIENCE, 29 Jun 2023, Vol 380, Issue 6652, pp. 1338-1343
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has created an image of our Milky Way galaxy using neutrinos. This groundbreaking observation, scheduled for publication in the journal Science, is credited to the international IceCube Collaboration, a consortium of over 350 scientists.
These high-energy (>500 GeV) neutrinos were identified by the South Pole-based IceCube Neutrino Observatory. This observatory is unmatched in its capabilities, covering a cubic kilometer of deep Antarctic ice and equipped with over 5,000 light sensors that track high-energy neutrinos from our galaxy and beyond.
This research concentrated on detecting neutrino emissions from the Milky Way, particularly from the southern sky close to our galaxy's center. Machine learning methodologies were instrumental in enhancing the accuracy of neutrino-induced cascade identification and reconstruction.
The utilization of these advanced techniques resulted in an analysis that is thrice as sensitive as the earlier probe, using a data set of 60,000 neutrinos collected over ten years. The results corroborate the Milky Way's long-suspected role as a source of high-energy neutrinos. This remarkable observation is an important step forward in the field of neutrino astronomy, underscoring the critical contribution of machine learning to data analysis. Future investigations by the IceCube team aim to pinpoint specific neutrino sources within the Milky Way.
Journal Links: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adc9818