Dom-do-dom-dom-DOM
If IceCube had a mascot it would probably be a friendly, talking DOM…probably wearing glasses because it’s obviously sooo cool. The DOM’s superpower would be communication. Being an excellent translator, the DOM is all about translating the language of light into measurable data for scientists to analyze. Impressively, the DOM works and lives up to 2.45km deep in frozen ice (no extreme cold weather gear required), but the DOM is also a social creature. It works in a coordinated team with thousands of DOMS around it, a DOMnation, if you will.
A cartoon DOM
In fact, these DOMs do make up the foundation of the IceCube Observatory, but they are a little less cartoonish in nature. DOM stands for Digital Optical Module. On rare occasion when neutrinos (both from the atmosphere and from the universe) interact with the ice below IceCube, they give off light. DOMs all around the interaction detect the light source. The bottom of each DOM is made up of Photomultiplier Tubes (PMT), which magnify (or multiply!) the signal of light they are detecting, so that in the end we can see even a single photon of light. The PMTs send the augmented signal to the top of the DOM which converts the data into a voltage and sends it to the top of the ice (via cable) and to the laboratories at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (via satellite) for analysis.
From this data, scientists can understand the light source’s direction, scattering pattern, and determine whether a neutrino caused the interaction.
See my previous blog for a neutrino definition! Just click here
Talk soon, friends.
Jocelyn
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