Seasonal variations of the atmospheric muon neutrino spectrum measured with IceCube
European Physical Journal C Springer Nature 85:12 (2025) 1368
Authors:
R Abbasi, M Ackermann, J Adams, SK Agarwalla, JA Aguilar, M Ahlers, JM Alameddine, NM Amin, K Andeen, C Argüelles, Y Ashida, S Athanasiadou, SN Axani, R Babu, X Bai, A Balagopal V., M Baricevic, SW Barwick, S Bash, V Basu, R Bay, JJ Beatty, J Becker Tjus, J Beise, C Bellenghi, S BenZvi, D Berley, E Bernardini, DZ Besson, E Blaufuss, L Bloom, S Blot, F Bontempo, JY Book Motzkin, C Boscolo Meneguolo, S Böser, O Botner, J Böttcher, J Braun, B Brinson, Z Brisson-Tsavoussis, J Brostean-Kaiser, L Brusa, RT Burley, D Butterfield, MA Campana, I Caracas, K Carloni, J Carpio, S Chattopadhyay, N Chau, Z Chen, D Chirkin, S Choi, BA Clark, A Coleman, P Coleman, GH Collin, A Connolly, JM Conrad, R Corley, DF Cowen, C De Clercq, JJ DeLaunay, D Delgado, S Deng, A Desai, P Desiati, KD de Vries, G de Wasseige, T DeYoung, JC DÃaz-Vélez, P Dierichs, S DiKerby, M Dittmer, A Domi, L Draper, H Dujmovic, D Durnford, K Dutta, MA DuVernois, T Ehrhardt, L Eidenschink, A Eimer, P Eller, E Ellinger, S El Mentawi, D Elsässer, R Engel, H Erpenbeck, W Esmail, J Evans, PA Evenson, KL Fan, K Fang, K Farrag, AR Fazely, A Fedynitch, N Feigl, S Fiedlschuster, C Finley, L Fischer, D Fox, A Franckowiak, S Fukami, P Fürst, J Gallagher, E Ganster, A Garcia, M Garcia, G Garg, E Genton, L Gerhardt, A Ghadimi, C Girard-Carillo, C Glaser, T Glüsenkamp, JG Gonzalez, S Goswami, A Granados, D Grant, SJ Gray, S Griffin, S Griswold, KM Groth, D Guevel, C Günther, P Gutjahr, C Ha, C Haack, A Hallgren, L Halve, F Halzen, L Hamacher, H Hamdaoui, M Ha Minh, M Handt, K Hanson, J Hardin, AA Harnisch, P Hatch, A Haungs, J Häußler, K Helbing, J Hellrung, J Hermannsgabner, L Heuermann, N Heyer, S Hickford, A Hidvegi, C Hill, GC Hill, R Hmaid, KD Hoffman, S Hori, K Hoshina, M Hostert, W Hou, T Huber, K Hultqvist, M Hünnefeld, R Hussain, K Hymon, A Ishihara, W Iwakiri, M Jacquart, S Jain, O Janik, M Jansson, M Jeong, M Jin, BJP Jones, N Kamp, D Kang, W Kang, X Kang, A Kappes, D Kappesser, L Kardum, T Karg, M Karl, A Karle, A Katil, U Katz, M Kauer, JL Kelley, M Khanal, A Khatee Zathul, A Kheirandish, J Kiryluk, SR Klein, Y Kobayashi, A Kochocki, R Koirala, H Kolanoski, T Kontrimas, L Köpke, C Kopper, DJ Koskinen, P Koundal, M Kowalski, T Kozynets, N Krieger, J Krishnamoorthi, T Krishnan, K Kruiswijk, E Krupczak, A Kumar, E Kun, N Kurahashi, N Lad, C Lagunas Gualda, M Lamoureux, MJ Larson, F Lauber, JP Lazar, K Leonard DeHolton, A LeszczyÅ„ska, J Liao, M Lincetto, YT Liu, M Liubarska, C Love, L Lu, F Lucarelli, W Luszczak, Y Lyu, J Madsen, E Magnus, KBM Mahn, Y Makino, E Manao, S Mancina, A Mand, W Marie Sainte, IC MariÅŸ, S Marka, Z Marka, M Marsee, I Martinez-Soler, R Maruyama, F Mayhew, F McNally, JV Mead, K Meagher, S Mechbal, A Medina, M Meier, Y Merckx, L Merten, J Mitchell, L Molchany, T Montaruli, RW Moore, Y Morii, R Morse, M Moulai, T Mukherjee, R Naab, M Nakos, U Naumann, J Necker, A Negi, L Neste, M Neumann, H Niederhausen, MU Nisa, K Noda, A Noell, A Novikov, A Obertacke Pollmann, V O’Dell, A Olivas, R Orsoe, J Osborn, E O’Sullivan, V Palusova, H Pandya, N Park, GK Parker, V Parrish, EN Paudel, L Paul, C Pérez de los Heros, T Pernice, J Peterson, A Pizzuto, M Plum, A Pontén, Y Popovych, M Prado Rodriguez, B Pries, R Procter-Murphy, GT Przybylski, L Pyras, C Raab, J Rack-Helleis, N Rad, M Ravn, K Rawlins, Z Rechav, A Rehman, I Reistroffer, E Resconi, S Reusch, W Rhode, B Riedel, A Rifaie, EJ Roberts, S Robertson, S Rodan, M Rongen, A Rosted, C Rott, T Ruhe, L Ruohan, I Safa, J Saffer, D Salazar-Gallegos, P Sampathkumar, A Sandrock, M Santander, S Sarkar, S Sarkar, J Savelberg, P Savina, P Schaile, M Schaufel, H Schieler, S Schindler, L Schlickmann, B Schlüter, F Schlüter, N Schmeisser, T Schmidt, J Schneider, FG Schröder, L Schumacher, S Schwirn, S Sclafani, D Seckel, L Seen, M Seikh, M Seo, S Seunarine, PA Sevle Myhr, R Shah, S Shefali, N Shimizu, M Silva, B Skrzypek, B Smithers, R Snihur, J Soedingrekso, A Søgaard, D Soldin, P Soldin, G Sommani, C Spannfellner, GM Spiczak, C Spiering, J Stachurska, M Stamatikos, T Stanev, T Stezelberger, T Stürwald, T Stuttard, GW Sullivan, I Taboada, S Ter-Antonyan, A Terliuk, A Thakuri, M Thiesmeyer, WG Thompson, J Thwaites, S Tilav, K Tollefson, C Tönnis, S Toscano, D Tosi, A Trettin, MA Unland Elorrieta, AK Upadhyay, K Upshaw, A Vaidyanathan, N Valtonen-Mattila, J Vandenbroucke, N van Eijndhoven, D Vannerom, J van Santen, J Vara, F Varsi, J Veitch-Michaelis, M Venugopal, M Vereecken, S Vergara Carrasco, S Verpoest, D Veske, A Vijai, C Walck, A Wang, C Weaver, P Weigel, A Weindl, J Weldert, AY Wen, C Wendt, J Werthebach, M Weyrauch, N Whitehorn, CH Wiebusch, DR Williams, L Witthaus, M Wolf, G Wrede, XW Xu, JP Yanez, E Yildizci, S Yoshida, R Young, F Yu, S Yu, T Yuan, A Zegarelli, S Zhang, Z Zhang, P Zhelnin, P Zilberman, M Zimmerman
Abstract:
This study presents an analysis of seasonal variations in the atmospheric muon neutrino flux, using 11.3 years of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. By leveraging a novel spectral unfolding method, we explore the energy range from 125 GeV to 10 TeV for zenith angles from 90∘$${90}^{\circ }$$ to 110∘$${110}^{\circ }$$, corresponding to the Antarctic atmosphere. Our findings reveal that the differential measurement of the amplitudes of the seasonal variation is consistent with an energy-dependent decrease reaching (-4.5$$-\,4.5$$ ± 1.2)% during Austral winter and increase to (+ 3.9 ± 1.3)% during Austral summer relative to the annual average at 10 TeV. While the unfolded flux exceeds the model predictions by up to 30%, the differential measurement of the seasonal to annual average flux remains unaffected. The measured seasonal variations of the muon neutrino spectrum are consistent with theoretical predictions using the MCEq code and the NRLMSISE-00 atmospheric model.
