How do neutrino observatories detect ghost particles from space?

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1. 1

   AN ALL-SKY SEARCH FOR THREE FLAVORS OF NEUTRINOS FROM GAMMA-RAY BURSTS WITH THE ICECUBE NEUTRINO OBSERVATORY

   The Astrophysical Journal (Aartsen et al.)Published Jun 20, 2016Checked Oct 6, 2026

   “We present the results and methodology of a search for neutrinos produced in the decay of charged pions created in interactions between protons and gamma-rays during the prompt emission of 807 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) over the entire sky. This three-year search is the first in IceCube for shower-like Cherenkov light patterns from electron, muon, and tau neutrinos correlated with GRBs. We detect five low-significance events correlated with five GRBs. These events are consistent with the background expectation from atmospheric muons and neutrinos. The results of this search in combination with those of IceCube’s four years of searches for track-like Cherenkov light patterns from muon neutrinos correlated with Northern-Hemisphere GRBs produce limits that tightly constrain current models of neutrino and ultra high energy cosmic ray production in GRB fireballs.”

2. 2

   Observation of an ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrino with KM3NeT.

   Nature (KM3NeT)Published Feb 12, 2025Checked Oct 6, 2026

   “High-energy neutrinos can be produced when ultra-relativistic cosmic-ray protons or nuclei interact with other matter or photons, and their observation could be a signature of these processes. Here we report an exceptionally high-energy event observed by KM3NeT, the deep-sea neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea4, which we associate with a cosmic neutrino detection. We detect a muon with an estimated energy of 120-60+110 petaelectronvolts (PeV). In light of its enormous energy and near-horizontal direction, the muon most probably originated from the interaction of a neutrino of even higher energy in the vicinity of the detector. The cosmic neutrino energy spectrum measured up to now5-7 falls steeply with energy. However, the energy of this event is much larger than that of any neutrino detected so far. This suggests that the neutrino may have originated in a different cosmic accelerator than the lower-energy neutrinos, or this may be the first detection of a cosmogenic neutrino8, resulting from the interactions of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with background photons in the Universe.”

3. 3

   Detection of astrophysical tau neutrino candidates in IceCube

   The European Physical Journal C (Abbasi et al.)Published Nov 15, 2022Checked Oct 6, 2026

   “High-energy tau neutrinos are rarely produced in atmospheric cosmic-ray showers or at cosmic particle accelerators, but are expected to emerge during neutrino propagation over cosmic distances due to flavor mixing. When high energy tau neutrinos interact inside the IceCube detector, two spatially separated energy depositions may be resolved, the first from the charged current interaction and the second from the tau lepton decay. We report a novel analysis of 7.5 years of IceCube data that identifies two candidate tau neutrinos among the 60 “High-Energy Starting Events” (HESE) collected during that period. The HESE sample offers high purity, all-sky sensitivity, and distinct observational signatures for each neutrino flavor, enabling a new measurement of the flavor composition. The measured astrophysical neutrino flavor composition is consistent with expectations, and an astrophysical tau neutrino flux is indicated at 2.8 $$\sigma $$ σ significance.”

4. 4

   Supernovae Time Profiles as a Probe of New Physics at Neutrino Telescopes.

   Physical review letters (Argüelles et al.)Published Jun 1, 2025Checked Oct 6, 2026

   “Neutrino telescopes, including IceCube, can detect galactic supernova events by observing the collective rise in photomultiplier count rates with a subsecond time resolution. Leveraging precise timing, we demonstrate for the first time the ability of neutrino telescopes to explore new weakly coupled states emitted from supernovae and subsequently decaying to neutrinos. Our approach utilizes publicly available packages, asteria and snewpy, for simulating detector responses and parametrizing neutrino fluxes originating from the standard model and new physics. We present results for two beyond-the-standard model scenarios and introduce the tool developed for testing a diverse range of new physics models.”

5. 5

   The IceCube Neutrino Observatory: instrumentation and online systems

   Journal of Instrumentation (Aartsen et al.)Published Mar 14, 2017Checked Oct 6, 2026

   “Sanchez, Sandrock, A., Sandroos, J., Sandstrom, P., Sarkar, S., Satalecka, K., Schlunder, P., Schmidt, T., Schoenen, S., Schöneberg, S., Schukraft, A., Schumacher, L., Seckel, D., Seunarine, S., Solarz, M., Soldin, D., Song, M., Spiczak, G.M., Spiering, C., Stanev, T., Stasik, A., Stettner, J., Steuer, A., Stezelberger, T., Stokstad, R.G., Stößl, A., Ström, R., Strotjohann, N.L., Sulanke, K.-H., Sullivan, G.W., Sutherland, M., Taavola, H., Taboada, I., Tatar, J., Tenholt, F., Ter-Antonyan, S., Terliuk, A., Tešić, G., Thollander, L., Tilav, S., Toale, P.A., Tobin, M.N., Toscano, S., Tosi, D., Tselengidou, M., Turcati, A., Unger, E., Usner, M., Vandenbroucke, J., Eijndhoven, N. van, Vanheule, S., Rossem, M. van, Santen, J. van, Vehring, M., Voge, M., Vogel, E., Vraeghe, M., Wahl, D., Walck, C., Wallace, A., Wallraff, M., Wandkowsky, N., Weaver, Ch., Weiss, M.J., Wendt, C., Westerhoff, S., Wharton, D., Whelan, B.J., Wickmann, S., Wiebe, K., Wiebusch, C.H., Wille, L., Williams, D.R., Wills, L., Wisniewski, P., Wolf, M., Wood, T.R., Woolsey, E., Woschnagg, K., Xu, D.L., Xu, X.W., Xu, Y., Yanez, J.P., Yodh, G., Yoshida, S., Zoll, M.”