IceCube's results regarding the blazar TXS 0506+056 provide compelling evidence for neutrino flares that are not temporally coincident with external multi-messenger information. The presence of such flares can only be inferred from the temporal distribution of the neutrino data. While IceCube has searched the northern and southern skies for the largest neutrino flare, these analyses solely used data sets consisting of track-like events due to high event rates and good pointing resolution. Through the use of machine-learning techniques, IceCube has produced a new data set consisting of 10 years of high-energy cascade-like neutrino events. These techniques improve the angular resolution of cascade-like events, and enable a high event rate due to an improved selection efficiency. Motivated by these improvements and IceCube's previous flare searches, this work scans the entire sky for neutrino flares, independent of external multi-messenger information, with cascade-like events. This provides a new opportunity to observe the transient neutrino sky and gain insight into the temporal variability of IceCube's data at every point in the sky. These results are used to further constrain the contributions of neutrino flares to the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux and complement IceCube's existing searches for time-dependent and steady-state neutrino emission.
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Title
A Search for Neutrino Flares with 10 years of IceCube's Cascade Events
Creators
Michael Kovacevich
Contributors
Naoko Kurahashi Neilson (Advisor)
Awarding Institution
Drexel University
Degree Awarded
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Publisher
Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Number of pages
xii, 74 pages
Resource Type
Dissertation
Language
English
Academic Unit
College of Arts and Sciences; Physics; Drexel University
Other Identifier
991021819015004721
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