The construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory began during the austral summer of 2004-05, and is expected to continue through 2011. During 2006, nine of the projected 80 strings were already deployed and taking data, making IceCube an operational neutrino observatory while still at about 10% of its final size. We present the first results of a point-source search based on the analysis of this year of data. We also characterize the angular resolution, effective area, and sensitivity to point sources of the nine-string detector configuration, and discuss how the performance is expected to improve as the detector moves toward completion.

IceCube Collaboration

Proceedings of the 30th International Cosmic Ray Conference; Rogelio Caballero, Juan Carlos D'Olivo, Gustavo Medina-Tanco, Lukas Nellen, Federico A. Sánchez, José F. Valdés-Galicia (eds.); Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico, 2008; Vol. 5 (HE part 2), pages 1389-1392