A detector for ‘ghost particles’ trapped in Antarctic ice has received a major upgrade.
The IceCube neutrino observatory is being expanded for the first time in its 15 years of service. Engineers added more than 600 new instruments to the bottom of the detector, which now consists of 92 rows of neutrino detectors buried in a cubic kilometer of ice near the Amundsen-Scott Antarctic Research Station.
This observatory is designed to search for high-energy neutrinos. Neutrinos are called “ghost particles” because they are subatomic particles with almost no mass or charge that travel through space and matter at nearly the speed of light. Neutrinos exist everywhere. Approximately 100 trillion pass through every person on Earth every second. But they rarely interact with the substances they pass through, making them difficult to detect.
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Scientists hope to better understand neutrinos. Neutrinos are produced in important processes such as the Big Bang, which started the universe, nuclear fusion, which powers stars, and supernova explosions, which herald the violent death of stars.
At IceCube, scientists are detecting the tiny flashes of light that occur when neutrinos actually interact with matter and create secondary particles. This requires the secluded, quiet environment readily available in Antarctica, as well as plenty of transparent material (ice in this case) to detect light. IceCube scientists have already successfully tracked the arrival of a single neutrino from a blazar, a distant galaxy that surrounds a supermassive black hole. They also used particles to map all the matter in the Milky Way galaxy.
In 2019, the National Science Foundation (NSF) approved funding to upgrade the detector from 86 to 92 columns. The six new strings will hold new detector modules with multiple types of optical sensors in each module. Drilling more than a mile into the Antarctic ice and installing the sensors required three 10-week field operations from 2023 to 2026.
The new sensor will allow scientists to more accurately measure properties such as neutrino oscillations, which occur when neutrinos formed by cosmic rays change into different types in Earth’s atmosphere. According to the IceCube collaboration, this will improve the ability to measure cosmic rays and detect neutrinos from extraplanetary sources such as supernovae. Researchers will also be able to go back and better calibrate the detectors, allowing them to refine data collected over the past 15 years.
“This upgrade will ensure the nation’s continued leadership in neutrino physics for years to come and pave the way for new space discoveries,” Marion Diricks, director of NSF’s Antarctic Astrophysics and Earth and Space Sciences Polar Cyberinfrastructure Program, said in a statement.
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