Observation of cosmic neutrinos
(IceCube experiment, South Pole, Utrecht and Brussels since 2003).
IceCube is the world's largest neutrino telescope, located in the deep ice
at the South Pole.
The aim of the project is to detect neutrino production related to cosmic
phenomena, in order to obtain insight in the processes which take place in the
corresponding objects.
Together with some colleagues at Utrecht, I started an activity in the
interdisciplinary field of astroparticle physics with the IceCube observatory.
After having received the prestigious Belgium Odysseus award I moved to the
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) to expand the research in astroparticle physics
at the Inter-university Institute for High Energies (IIHE) located in Brussels.
Our group has focused on (multi-messenger) studies of cosmic explosions
(e.g. Gamma Ray Bursts and AGN flares) which are very likely related to black holes.
In order to enable detection of neutrino activity in relation with these phenomena,
I have devised a new analysis method and the necessary software structure.
Simulation studies show that indeed this new method is much more sensitive
than the methods used up to now. As such it is expected that this will open
the possibility of identifying the sources of cosmic neutrinos for the first time in history.
An educational movie explaining our research has been produced by the Brussels team