  The measurement of a diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux using starting track
events marks the first time IceCube has observed and subsequently measured the
astrophysical diffuse flux using a dataset composed primarily of starting track
events. Starting tracks combine an excellent angular and energy resolution.
This enables us to take advantage of the self-veto effect in the southern sky
reducing the atmospheric neutrino rate allowing us to detect astrophysical
neutrinos to energies well below 100 TeV. We measure the astrophysical flux as
$\phi^{per-flavor}_{Astro}=1.68^{+0.19}_{-0.22}$(at 100 TeV) and
$\gamma_{Astro} = 2.58^{+0.10}_{-0.09}$ assuming a single power law flux. The
astrophysical flux 90% sensitive energy range is 3 TeV to 500 TeV, extending
IceCube's reach to the low energy astrophysical flux by an order of magnitude.
A brief summary of tests performed to search for neutrinos from the galactic
plane using this dataset is also provided. With this sample, we did not find
statistically significant evidence for emission from the galactic plane. We
then tested the impact of these galactic plane neutrinos on the isotropic
diffuse flux, with at most 10% effect on the overall normalization and
negligible impact to the spectral index.
