Penn State is a member of a large collaboration of about 250 scientists who have built and are now using the IceCube telescope to detect ultra-high energy neutrinos. IceCube's predecessor, AMANDA, was completed in 2000, with 677 optical sensors buried between 1,500 and 2,000 meters below the ice.  IceCube consists of about 5,000 modules and was fully constructed in late 2010.

IceCube also features the "DeepCore" infill array, deployed below 2100 m in the clearest ice with much higher module density and surrounded by most of the standard IceCube detector. These features will lower our neutrino energy threshold by about an order of magnitude, to about 10 GeV. DeepCore will thereby allow us to explore lower mass solar WIMPs, atmospheric neutrino oscillations, and low energy neutrinos from possible point sources in the southern sky. The figure shows an artist's conception of what IceCube looks like now that it has been completely deployed.

 

 

 

Our goal is to gain information about the universe around us through the detection of these neutrinos.  Neutrinos are unique in that they can traverse long distances without being deflected, scattered or absorbed by interstellar magnetic fields, starlight or dust, as depicted in the figure to the left. Therefore, they should be able to give us accurate information about what is going on in the distant reaches of the cosmos and in the hearts of the most violent astrophysical objects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historically, whenever astronomers open a new window on the universe, they have often made dramatic discoveries and gained new insight into the universe around us. We are building IceCube in the hope that it will join this illustrious group of discovery instruments.