Search For Point-like Neutrino Sources Research Articles

Observation of the cosmic ray shadow of the Sun with the ANTARES neutrino telescope

The ANTARES detector is an undersea neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea. The search for point-like neutrino sources is one of the main goals of the ANTARES telescope, requiring a reliable method to evaluate the detector angular resolution and pointing accuracy. This work describes the study of the Sun "shadow" effect with the ANTARES detector. The shadow is the deficit in the atmospheric muon flux in the direction of the Sun caused by the absorption of the primary cosmic rays. This analysis is based on the data collected between 2008 and 2017 by the ANTARES telescope. The observed statistical significance of the Sun shadow detection is $3.7\sigma$, with an estimated angular resolution of $0.59^\circ\pm0.10^\circ$ for downward-going muons. The pointing accuracy is found to be consistent with the expectations and no evidence of systematic pointing shifts is observed.

Measurement of the cosmic ray Moon shadow with the ANTARES detector.

The ANTARES detector is the largest neutrino telescope currently in operation in Mediterranean sea. One of the main goals of the ANTARES telescope is the search for point-like neutrino sources, so both the pointing accuracy and the angular resolution of the detector need a proper direct estimation. One possibility to evaluate the pointing performance of the detector is to analyse the shadow of the Moon, i.e. the deficit in the atmospheric muon flux in the direction of the Moon induced by absorption of cosmic rays. The ANTARES data taken between 2007 and 2016 shows aMoon shadow evidence of 3.5σsignificance. This is the first measurement of the ANTARES angular resolution and absolute pointing for atmospheric muons using a celestial calibration source. The presented results confirm the good pointing performance of the detector as well as the predicted angular resolution.

Moon shadow in ANTARES

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.

The cosmic ray shadow of the Moon observed with the ANTARES neutrino telescope

One of the main objectives of the ANTARES telescope is the search for point-like neutrino sources. Both the pointing accuracy and the angular resolution of the detector are important in this context and a reliable way to evaluate this performance is needed. In order to measure the pointing accuracy of the detector, one possibility is to study the shadow of the Moon, i.e. the deficit of the atmospheric muon flux from the direction of the Moon induced by the absorption of cosmic rays. Analysing the data taken between 2007 and 2016, the Moon shadow is observed with 3.5sigma statistical significance. The detector angular resolution for downward-going muons is 0.73^{circ }pm 0.14^{circ }. The resulting pointing performance is consistent with the expectations. An independent check of the telescope pointing accuracy is realised with the data collected by a shower array detector onboard of a ship temporarily moving around the ANTARES location.

Moon shadow observation with ANTARES and KM3NeT neutrino telescope

The ANTARES detector is the largest neutrino telescope currently in operation in the Northern Hemisphere. The search for point-like neutrino sources is one of the main goals of ANTARES, so a reliable way to evaluate the detector pointing performance is needed. The Moon shadow measurement, i.e. the deficit in the atmospheric muon flux in the direction of the Moon induced by absorption of cosmic rays, allows the estimation of the angular resolution and the pointing accuracy. The 2007–2012 ANTARES data set shows a significance of Moon shadowing around 3σ. This is the first measurement of the ANTARES angular resolution and absolute pointing for atmospheric muons using a celestial calibration source. The same approach has been used to estimate also the expected Moon shadow significance with the KM3NeT-ARCA detector, the future cubic kilometre scale detector that will be installed in Sicily.

SEARCH FOR NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM GAMMA-RAY SOURCES WITH THE ANTARES TELESCOPE

ANTARES is the first undersea neutrino detector ever built and presently the neutrino telescope with the largest effective area operating in the Northern Hemisphere. A three-dimensional array of photomultiplier tubes detects the Cherenkov light induced by the muons produced in the interaction of high energy neutrinos with the matter surrounding the detector. The detection of astronomical neutrino sources is one of the main goals of ANTARES. The search for point-like neutrino sources with the ANTARES telescope is described and the preliminary results obtained with data collected from 2007 to 2010 are shown. No cosmic neutrino source has been observed and neutrino flux upper limits have been calculated for the most promising source candidates.