Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2024) 139: 533
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-05179-y

Regular Article

Citizen science for IceCube: Name that Neutrino

¹ III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University, 52056, Aachen, Germany
² Department of Physics, University of Adelaide, 5005, Adelaide, Australia
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., 99508, Anchorage, AK, USA
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Texas at Arlington, Box 19059, 502 Yates St, Science Hall Rm 108, 76019, Arlington, TX, USA
⁵ CTSPS, Clark-Atlanta University, 30314, Atlanta, GA, USA
⁶ School of Physics and Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 30332, Atlanta, GA, USA
⁷ Department of Physics, Southern University, 70813, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
⁸ Department of Physics, University of California, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
⁹ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
¹⁰ Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
¹¹ Fakultät für Physik and Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany
¹² Université Libre de Bruxelles, Science Faculty CP230, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
¹³ Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Dienst ELEM, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
¹⁴ Department of Physics and Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, Harvard University, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA
¹⁵ Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA
¹⁶ Department of Physics and The International Center for Hadron Astrophysics, Chiba University, 263-8522, Chiba, Japan
¹⁷ Department of Physics, Loyola University Chicago, 60660, Chicago, IL, USA
¹⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
¹⁹ Department of Physics, University of Maryland, 20742, College Park, MD, USA
²⁰ Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 43210, Columbus, OH, USA
²¹ Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, 43210, Columbus, OH, USA
²² Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
²³ Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University, 44221, Dortmund, Germany
²⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA
²⁵ Department of Physics, University of Alberta, T6G 2E1, Edmonton, AL, Canada
²⁶ Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91058, Erlangen, Germany
²⁷ Physik-department, Technische Universität München, 85748, Garching, Germany
²⁸ Département de physique nucléaire et corpusculaire, Université de Genève, 1211, Genève, Switzerland
²⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent, 9000, Gent, Belgium
³⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, 92697, Irvine, CA, USA
³¹ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Astroparticle Physics, 76021, Karlsruhe, Germany
³² Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Experimental Particle Physics, 76021, Karlsruhe, Germany
³³ Department of Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy, Queen’s University, K7L 3N6, Kingston, ON, Canada
³⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, 89154, Las Vegas, NV, USA
³⁵ Nevada Center for Astrophysics, University of Nevada, 89154, Las Vegas, NV, USA
³⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, 66045, Lawrence, KS, USA
³⁷ Centre for Cosmology, Particle Physics and Phenomenology - CP3, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
³⁸ Department of Physics, Mercer University, 31207-0001, Macon, GA, USA
³⁹ Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, Madison, WI, USA
⁴⁰ Department of Physics and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, Madison, WI, USA
⁴¹ Institute of Physics, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, 55099, Mainz, Germany
⁴² Department of Physics, Marquette University, 53201, Milwaukee, WI, USA
⁴³ Institut für Kernphysik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 48149, Münster, Germany
⁴⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, 19716, Newark, DE, USA
⁴⁵ Department of Physics, Yale University, 06520, New Haven, CT, USA
⁴⁶ Columbia Astrophysics and Nevis Laboratories, Columbia University, 10027, New York, NY, USA
⁴⁷ Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, OX1 3PU, Oxford, UK
⁴⁸ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia Galileo Galilei, Università Degli Studi di Padova, 35122, Padova, PD, Italy
⁴⁹ Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA
⁵⁰ Physics Department, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 57701, Rapid City, SD, USA
⁵¹ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, 54022, River Falls, WI, USA
⁵² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, 14627, Rochester, NY, USA
⁵³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 84112, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
⁵⁴ Department of Physics, Chung-Ang University, 06974, Seoul, Korea
⁵⁵ Department of Physics, Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden
⁵⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, 11794-3800, Stony Brook, NY, USA
⁵⁷ Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, 16419, Suwon, Republic of Korea
⁵⁸ Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, 11529, Taipei, Taiwan
⁵⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, 35487, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
⁶⁰ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, 16802, University Park, PA, USA
⁶¹ Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, 16802, University Park, PA, USA
⁶² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, 75120, Uppsala, Sweden
⁶³ Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal, 42119, Wuppertal, Germany
⁶⁴ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Platanenallee 6, 15738, Zeuthen, Germany
⁶⁵ Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, Sainik School Post, 751005, Bhubaneswar, India
⁶⁶ Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96, Gothenburg, Sweden
⁶⁷ Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 113-0032, Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan
⁶⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, 35487, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

^jh analysis@icecube.wisc.edu

Received: 17 January 2024
Accepted: 14 April 2024
Published online: 18 June 2024

Abstract

Name that Neutrino is a citizen science project where volunteers aid in classification of events for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, an immense particle detector at the geographic South Pole. From March 2023 to September 2023, volunteers did classifications of videos produced from simulated data of both neutrino signal and background interactions. Name that Neutrino obtained more than 128,000 classifications by over 1800 registered volunteers that were compared to results obtained by a deep neural network machine-learning algorithm. Possible improvements for both Name that Neutrino and the deep neural network are discussed.