Search for Galactic cosmic ray accelerators with the combined IceCube+AMANDA detector

The IceCube neutrino observatory instruments a volume of 1 cubic km of the Antarctic ice with 5160 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) aligned on 86 strings with the goal to detect astrophysical sources of high energy neutrinos. During the construction phase from 2004 until 2011, the detector has been growing each year and data was collected in each configuration. In the season 2008/2009, 40 strings of IceCube were operated. In addition, the predecessor of IceCube, AMANDA, acted as an integrated part of the detector. With its denser spacing of PMTs, AMANDA improved the effective area below 10 TeV and acted as a first generation low energy extension of IceCube. We present a search for astrophysical sources of neutrinos in the Milky Way with the combined detector consisting of 40 strings of IceCube plus AMANDA. Potential Galactic cosmic ray accelerators are characterized by their proximity in comparison to other objects such as AGN but their energy spectra show exponential cut-offs. In transparent sources, high energy neutrinos will follow similar soft or cut-off spectra. This strongly motivates a low energy optimized analysis with IceCube. Several test including a scan of the Galactic Plane and a dedicated analysis for the Cygnus region are presented. No neutrino signal has been observed and upper limits are reported.