Abstract
We present the first statistically significant detection of neutrino oscillations in the high-energy regime () from an analysis of IceCube Neutrino Observatory data collected in 2010 and 2011. This measurement is made possible by the low-energy threshold of the DeepCore detector () and benefits from the use of the IceCube detector as a veto against cosmic-ray-induced muon background. The oscillation signal was detected within a low-energy muon neutrino sample (20–100 GeV) extracted from data collected by DeepCore. A high-energy muon neutrino sample (100 GeV–10 TeV) was extracted from IceCube data to constrain systematic uncertainties. The disappearance of low-energy upward-going muon neutrinos was observed, and the nonoscillation hypothesis is rejected with more than significance. In a two-neutrino flavor formalism, our data are best described by the atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters and , and maximum mixing is favored.
- Received 16 May 2013
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.081801
© 2013 American Physical Society