Speaker
Description
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has completed its first major expansion since construction: five new, densely instrumented strings carrying next-generation optical sensors, deployed at the detector's center in the 2025/2026 Antarctic field season.
The Upgrade lowers IceCube's energy threshold into the few GeV range, enabling improved measurements of atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters while also reducing ice-optical-property systematics that currently limit several astrophysical analyses.
As part of the calibration effort, Stockholm University and Uppsala University groups deployed steerable in-ice cameras to monitor hole-ice refreezing and constrain the bulk-ice optical model. We report on the Upgrade's design and deployment together with first results from the camera system.