Time-dependent search of neutrino emission from X-ray and gamma-ray binaries with the ANTARES telescope

Abstract

ANTARES is currently the largest neutrino telescope operating in the Northern Hemisphere, aiming at the detection of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources. Such observations would provide important clues about the processes at work in those objects, and possibly help to understand the origin of very high-energy cosmic rays. By design, neutrino telescopes constantly monitor at least one complete hemisphere of the sky and are thus well set to detect neutrinos produced in transient astrophysical events. The flux of high-energy neutrinos from a transient source is lower than if is an steady one, but the background originating from interactions of charged cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere can be drastically reduced by requiring a directional and temporal coincidence of the astrophysical phenomenon detected by electromagnetic instruments. Time-dependent point-source searches have been applied to a list of X-ray and gamma-ray binary systems detected by satellites or TeV imaging Cherenkov telescopes using ANTARES data. The results of these searches are presented. Upper limits on neutrino fluxes, their comparisons with the published gamma-ray spectral energy distribution and with prediction from astrophysical models are also reported.