Title: Down-going neutrinos and a next-generation surface array for IceCube
Abstract:
IceCube has recently discovered an astrophysical neutrino
flux up to energies of a few PeV. The sources of the flux are not yet identified, but real-time
alerts are now in place to look for coincidences with other messengers. Adding a surface array around the IceCube footprint would increase considerably the number of tracks useful for
neutrino astronomy, and in particular, would increase sensitivity in
the region of the sky containing the Galactic center. Such a surface
array requires very high efficiency in vetoing cosmic-ray showers,
which is challenging to achieve. Various approaches are being used to address
this challenge. In this talk, I will present an analysis of IceTop as a veto for IceCube, and the
development of scintillator technology for a near-future installation.