Muon track reconstruction and data selection techniques in AMANDA Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) is a high-energy neutrino telescope operating at the geographic South Pole. It is a lattice of photo-multiplier tubes buried deep in the polar ice between 1500 and 2000 m. The primary goal of this detector is to discover astrophysical sources of high-energy neutrinos. A high-energy muon neutrino coming through the earth from the Northern Hemisphere can be identified by the secondary muon moving upward through the detector. The muon tracks are reconstructed with a maximum likelihood method. It models the arrival times and amplitudes of Cherenkov photons registered by the photo-multipliers. This paper describes the different methods of reconstruction, which have been successfully implemented within AMANDA. Strategies for optimizing the reconstruction performance and rejecting background are presented. For a typical analysis procedure the direction of tracks are reconstructed with about 2 accuracy. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

published proceedings

  • NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS & METHODS IN PHYSICS RESEARCH SECTION A-ACCELERATORS SPECTROMETERS DETECTORS AND ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT

altmetric score

  • 3

author list (cited authors)

  • Ahrens, J., Bai, X., Bay, R., Barwick, S. W., Becka, T., Becker, J. K., ... Yodh, G.

citation count

  • 170

complete list of authors

  • Ahrens, J||Bai, X||Bay, R||Barwick, SW||Becka, T||Becker, JK||Becker, K-H||Bernardini, E||Bertrand, D||Biron, A||Boersma, DJ||Böser, S||Botner, O||Bouchta, A||Bouhali, O||Burgess, T||Carius, S||Castermans, T||Chirkin, D||Collin, B||Conrad, J||Cooley, J||Cowen, DF||Davour, A||De Clercq, C||DeYoung, T||Desiati, P||Dewulf, J-P||Ekström, P||Feser, T||Gaug, M||Gaisser, TK||Ganugapati, R||Geenen, H||Gerhardt, L||Groß, A||Goldschmidt, A||Hallgren, A||Halzen, F||Hanson, K||Hardtke, R||Harenberg, T||Hauschildt, T||Helbing, K||Hellwig, M||Herquet, P||Hill, GC||Hubert, D||Hughey, B||Hulth, PO||Hultqvist, K||Hundertmark, S||Jacobsen, J||Karle, A||Kestel, M||Köpke, L||Kowalski, M||Kuehn, K||Lamoureux, JI||Leich, H||Leuthold, M||Lindahl, P||Liubarsky, I||Madsen, J||Marciniewski, P||Matis, HS||McParland, CP||Messarius, T||Minaeva, Y||Miočinović, P||Mock, PC||Morse, R||Münich, KS||Nam, J||Nahnhauer, R||Neunhöffer, T||Niessen, P||Nygren, DR||Ögelman, H||Olbrechts, Ph||Pérez de los Heros, C||Pohl, AC||Porrata, R||Price, PB||Przybylski, GT||Rawlins, K||Resconi, E||Rhode, W||Ribordy, M||Richter, S||Rodrı́guez Martino, J||Ross, D||Sander, H-G||Schinarakis, K||Schlenstedt, S||Schmidt, T||Schneider, D||Schwarz, R||Silvestri, A||Solarz, M||Spiczak, GM||Spiering, C||Stamatikos, M||Steele, D||Steffen, P||Stokstad, RG||Sulanke, K-H||Streicher, O||Taboada, I||Thollander, L||Tilav, S||Wagner, W||Walck, C||Wang, Y-R||Wiebusch, CH||Wiedemann, C||Wischnewski, R||Wissing, H||Woschnagg, K||Yodh, G

publication date

  • May 2004