IceCube detects new highest-energy neutrino

Symmetry Magazine : In an analysis of data from 2014, researchers at the IceCube neutrino detector in Antarctica spotted a muon with an energy of more than 2 PeV. Such high-energy muons are only known to be produced when high-energy muon neutrinos collide with particles in Earth’s atmosphere. That means the neutrino that produced the muon probably had three times its energy, or about 6 PeV. For comparison’s sake that is 1000 times more energetic than the collisions in the first run of the Large Hadron Collider. The presence of high-energy neutrinos could potentially provide clues to the origin of high-energy cosmic rays. The IceCube collaboration is now planning to send updates to gamma-ray observatories as soon as a high-energy neutrino is detected so that researchers at those observatories can look in the right direction to catch potential high-energy cosmic rays.