Improved measurements of the TeV-PeV extragalactic neutrino spectrum from joint analyses of IceCube tracks and cascades

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Authors: Rasha Abbasi, M. Ackermann, J. Adams, Sanjib Kumar Agarwalla, J. A. Aguilar, M. Ahlers, Jean-Marco Alameddine, S. Ali, N. M. Amin, K. Andeen, C. Argüelles, Y. Ashida
+88 more S. Athanasiadou, Spencer Axani, R. Babu, X. Bai, J. Baines-Holmes, Aswathi Balagopal, S. W. Barwick, S. Bash, Vedant Basu, R. Bay, J. J. Beatty, J. Becker Tjus, P. Behrens, Jakob Beise, Chiara Bellenghi, B. Benkel, S. BenZvi, D. Berley, E. Bernardini, D. Z. Besson, E. Blaufuss, Lucas Bloom, Summer Blot, I. Bodo, F. Bontempo, Julia Book, Caterina Boscolo Meneguolo, S. Böser, O. Botner, J. Böttcher, J. Braun, Bennett Brinson, Z. Brisson-Tsavoussis, R. T. Burley, D. Butterfield, Michael Campana, Kiara Carloni, Jose Carpio, S. Chattopadhyay, N. Chau, Z. Chen, D. Chirkin, S. Choi, Brian Clark, Alan Coleman, P. Coleman, G. H. Collin, Diego Alberto Coloma Borja, A. Connolly, J. M. Conrad, R. Corley, D. F. Cowen, C. De Clercq, James DeLaunay, Diyaselis Delgado, T. Delmeulle, S. Deng, P. Desiati, K. D. de Vries, G. de Wasseige, T. DeYoung, J. C. Díaz–Vélez, Stephen DiKerby, M. Dittmer, A. Domi, L. Draper, L. Dueser, Daniel Durnford, K. Dutta, M. A. DuVernois, T. Ehrhardt, L. Eidenschink, A. Eimer, P. Eller, E. Ellinger, D. Elsäesser, R. Engel, H. Erpenbeck, W. Esmail, S. Eulig, J. Evans, P. A. Evenson, K. L. Fan, K. Fang, K. Farrag, A. R. Fazely, Anatoli Fedynitch, N. Feigl
Cited by: 11
References: 76

Abstract

The IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory has discovered the presence of a diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux at energies of TeV and beyond using neutrino induced muon tracks and cascade events from neutrino interactions. We present two analyses sensitive to neutrino events in the energy range \SI{1}{TeV} to \SI{10}{PeV}, using more than 10 years of IceCube data. Both analyses consistently reject a neutrino spectrum following a single power-law with significance $>4\,σ$ in favor of a broken power law. We describe the methods implemented in the two analyses, the spectral constraints obtained, and the validation of the robustness of the results. Additionally, we report the detection of a muon neutrino in the MESE sample with an energy of $11.4^{+2.46}_{-2.53} $\,\si{PeV}, the highest energy neutrino observed by IceCube to date. The results presented here show insights into the spectral shape of astrophysical neutrinos, which has important implications for inferring their production processes in a multi-messenger picture.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena Neutrino Physics Research Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena

Publication details

Journal / source
Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Volume
113
Issue
6
Publication date
30 January 2026
Language
EN