Moon shadow in ANTARES

Tommaso Chiarusi,Matteo Sanguineti,C Spiering

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201920707007

Tommaso Chiarusi, Matteo Sanguineti + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201920707007

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Abstract

The ANTARES neutrino telescope is the largest Cherenkov detector currently in operation in Mediterranean sea. The search for point-like neutrino sources is one of the telescope goals. For this reason, both the detector angular resolution and the pointing accuracy need a proper estimation. Measuring the deficit of the atmospheric muons in the direction of the Moon induced by the absorption of primary cosmic rays, the so called Moon shadow, allows to evaluate the pointing performance of the telescope. In this contribution we show the result of the analysis of the data taken between 2007 and 2016. The Moon shadow is detected with 3.5σ significance. This is the first measurement of the ANTARES angular resolution for atmospheric muons and its absolute pointing using a celestial calibration source. The presented results confirm the good pointing performance of the detector as well as the expected angular resolution.

Highlights

The ANTARES detector (Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch) [1] currently is the largest submarine neutrino telescope, operating since 2007 in the Mediterranean sea at 2500 m depth, about 50 km off the coast of Toulon, in France
The Moon shadow is detected with 3.5σ significance. This is the first measurement of the ANTARES angular resolution for atmospheric muons and its absolute pointing using a celestial calibration source
This contribution summarises the estimations of the pointing performance of the ANTARES detector exploiting the so called Moon shadow effect: the deficit in the flux of atmospheric muons coming from the direction of the Moon disk due to the absorption of the primary cosmic rays by the Moon itself

Summary

Introduction

The ANTARES detector (Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch) [1] currently is the largest submarine neutrino telescope, operating since 2007 in the Mediterranean sea at 2500 m depth, about 50 km off the coast of Toulon, in France It aims to measure the fluxes of cosmic neutrinos arriving either diffuse from the whole sky as well as from potential astrophysical sources. The discovery potential for point-sources relies on the absolute orientation of the telescope and its angular resolution This contribution summarises the estimations of the pointing performance of the ANTARES detector exploiting the so called Moon shadow effect: the deficit in the flux of atmospheric muons coming from the direction of the Moon disk due to the absorption of the primary cosmic rays by the Moon itself. The detailed description of all the analysis procedures can be found in [2]

Optimisation of the selection criteria

One dimensional data analysis

Two dimensional data analysis

Conclusions