![]() ![]() ![]() At the present state of construction, more » IceCube consists of 52 paired IceTop surface tanks and 22 IceCube strings with a total of 1426 Digital Optical Modules deployed at depths up to 2350 m. The IceCube observatory will be finalized in 2011 to form a cubic-kilometer ice-Cherenkov detector at the location of the geographic South Pole. These reach energies well beyond those produced with accelerator = signals, scans for steady and intermittent neutrino point sources, searches for dark matter candidates, magnetic monopoles and other exotic particles, improvements in analysis techniques, as well as future detector extensions. The scientific missions of IceCube include such varied tasks as the search for sources of cosmic rays, the observation of Galactic supernova explosions, the search for dark matter, and the study of the neutrinos themselves. The light patterns reveal the type (flavor) of neutrino interaction and the energy and direction of the neutrino, making neutrino astronomy possible. Each optical sensor is a complete data acquisition system, including a phototube, digitization electronics, control and trigger systems and LEDs for calibration. A total of 5,160 optical sensors are embedded into a gigaton of Antarctic ice to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by secondary particles produced when neutrinos interact with nuclei in the ice. The IceCube project transforms a cubic kilometer of deep and ultra-transparent Antarctic ice into a particle detector. The first such instrument, IceCube, is near completion and taking data. Neutrino astronomy beyond the Sun was first imagined in the late 1950s by the 1970s, it was realized that kilometer-scale neutrino detectors were required. ![]()
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