IceCube upgraded with Swedish expertise – Uppsala University

Swedish expertise central for each start-up and improve

Swedish teams on the universities in Uppsala and Stockholm have been among the many founding companions of AMANDA, the South Pole prototype that demonstrated the feasibility of ice-based neutrino astronomy. Sweden later made important contributions to the development of IceCube, together with constructing about 20 % of the detector’s sensor modules and growing the deep-ice energy and communications cables. For the IceCube Upgrade, Sweden has as soon as once more contributed to cable growth along with the corporate Hexatronic in Hudiksvall who manufactured all of the cables. Furthermore, researchers in Stockholm and Uppsala developed steerable cameras that can allow linking structural variations within the ice to calibration information. Six digicam modules inbuilt Sweden particularly for the improve have been deployed within the ice. They are used to observe the freezing of the water-filled holes into which the improve strings have been lowered.

”We began receiving the primary photographs from the cameras whereas the set up of the strings was nonetheless ongoing. It was a tremendous feeling to see that they labored as supposed, two kilometers down within the glacier and beneath very excessive strain because the water within the borehole freezes once more, says Chad Finley, professor of physics at Stockholm University.

“The camera images will be used to characterize the properties of the refrozen ice in the holes as well as the bulk ice between the strings. Thorough understanding of the optical properties of the ice surrounding the sensor modules is critical for precise reconstruction of the neutrino directions and essential for neutrino astronomy,” says Olga Botner, senior professor at Uppsala University.