Speaker
Description
Over the past few decades, gamma-ray observations at TeV energies have significantly advanced our understanding of extreme processes in our galaxy. However, key questions about cosmic-ray acceleration remain, particularly regarding their maximum energy and their connection to features like the "knee" and "ankle" in the cosmic-ray spectrum. Extending gamma-ray observations to higher energies is essential as gamma rays, unlike cosmic rays, are not deflected by magnetic fields and can directly trace back to their sources.
The IceCube Observatory, located at the South Pole, is uniquely equipped to address these questions with its sensitivity to PeV gamma rays. As the only experiment of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, IceCube has a field of view not covered by any other high-energy gamma-ray observatories.
Using simulations for supervised learning, we apply multiple machine learning techniques to improve background rejection and to estimate the uncertainty of our directional reconstructions on an event-by-event basis. Using these developments, we report the resulting improvements to IceCube’s sensitivity using data from the 2012 observation period. This motivates a multi-year point-source search to identify potential PeV gamma-ray sources or, in the absence of significant hotspots, to set upper limits on their flux.
| Research Area | High-Energy Particle Physics |
|---|