Publication: Detection of a particle shower at the Glashow resonance with IceCube
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2021-03-10
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
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IceCube Collaboration. 2021. "Detection of a particle shower at the Glashow resonance with IceCube." Nature 591: 7849, 220-224.
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The Glashow resonance describes the resonant formation of a W− boson during the interaction of a high-energy electron antineutrino with an electron (1), peaking at an antineutrino energy of 6.3 petaelectronvolts (PeV) in the rest frame of the electron. While this energy scale is out of reach for current operating and future planned particle accelerators natural astrophysical phenomena are expected to produce antineutrinos that reach beyond PeV energies. Here we report the detection by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory of a particle shower consistent with being created at the Glashow resonance. An energy of 6.05±0.72 PeV, visible via Cherenkov radiation in the Antarctic ice sheet, was measured. Features consistent with the production of secondary muons in the particle shower indicate the hadronic decay of a resonant W− boson, confirm that the source is astrophysical and provide improved directional localization. The evidence of the Glashow resonance heralds the presence of electron antineutrinos in the astrophysical flux, while also providing further validation of the Standard Model. Its unique signature illustrates a method to disentangle neutrinos from antineutrinos, thus opening a path to distinguish between astronomical accelerators that produce neutrinos via hadronuclear or photohadronic interactions, with or without strong magnetic fields. As such, knowledge of both the flavour and charge will add a new element to neutrino astronomy.
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