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PLE$ u$M: A global and distributed monitoring system of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos

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 Added by Lisa Schumacher
 Publication date 2021
  fields Physics
and research's language is English




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High-energy astrophysical neutrinos, discovered by IceCube, are now regularly observed, albeit at a low rate due to their low flux. As a result, open questions about high-energy neutrino astrophysics and particle physics remain limited by statistics at best, or unanswered at worst. Fortunately, this situation will improve soon: in the next few years, a host of new neutrino telescopes, currently under planning and construction, will come online. It is natural to combine their collected observing power: we propose the Planetary Neutrino Monitoring System (PLE$ u$M), a concept for a global repository of high-energy neutrino observations, in order to finally give firm answers to open questions. PLE$ u$M will reach up to four times the exposure available today by combining the exposures of current and future neutrino telescopes distributed around the world -- IceCube, IceCube-Gen2, Baikal-GVD, KM3NeT, and P-ONE. Depending on the declination and spectral index, PLE$ u$M will improve the sensitivity to astrophysical neutrinos by up to two orders of magnitude. We present first estimates on the capability of PLE$ u$M to discover Galactic and extragalactic sources of astrophysical neutrinos and to characterize the diffuse flux of high-energy neutrinos in unprecedented detail.



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