Measurement of the Diffuse Muon Neutrino Flux using Starting Track Events in IceCube

Abstract: IceCube measures the diffuse neutrino flux across several neutrino flavors and energy ranges. ESTES focuses on the measurement of the diffuse neutrino flux using high purity astrophysical muon neutrinos with energies above 1 TeV. We use the Enhanced Starting Track Event Selection dataset which selects for tracks starting within the IceCube fiducial volume. We employ a machine learning algorithm to help differentiate between tracks from atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos. This produces a high purity diffuse neutrino sample that can provide valuable insight into the properties of the atmospheric and astrophysical diffuse neutrino spectrum. Using simulated neutrinos, we show the sensitivity for this measurement of the diffuse neutrino flux with ESTES.