posted on 2018-05-02, 13:49authored byA. Keivani, D. F. Cowen, D. B. Fox, J. A. Kennea, G. Tešić, C. F. Turley, P. A. Evans, J. P. Osborne, F. E. Marshall
We present results of the first four Swift satellite follow-up campaigns seeking to identify transient or variable X-ray or UV/optical sources that might be associated with individual candidate high-energy cosmic muon neutrinos detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Real-time public alerts providing coordinates and arrival times of likely-cosmic neutrinos have been provided by IceCube, via the Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network, since April 2016. Subsequent Swift X-ray observations of four likely-cosmic neutrinos (events 160731A, 161103A, 170312A, and 170321A) reveal multiple X-ray sources in the targeted 90%-containment regions, most of which have been previously identified, and none of which are considered likely sources of high-energy neutrinos. Observations exclude association with the brightest 30% to 65% of Swifttype γ-ray burst X-ray afterglows over the observed regions. Contemporaneous Swift UV/optical observations, providing reduced coverage of the event localizations, also reveal no candidate transient or variable UV/optical counterparts. We discuss the results of these campaigns and our plans for further follow-up of likely-cosmic high-energy neutrinos from IceCube.
Funding
The authors thank the IceCube collaboration for publicly distributing high energy
neutrinos in real-time, and the Swift team for their rapid responses to these alerts. A.K.,
D.B.F., D.F.C., G.T. and C.F.T. acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation under
grant PHY-1412633; A.K. and D.F.C. acknowledge support from the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration Swift Guest Investigator Program under grant NNX17AI95G. A.K. and G.T.
gratefully acknowledge support from the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos at the Pennsylvania
State University. P.A.E. and J.P.O. acknowledge support from the UK Space Agency.
History
Citation
Proceedings of Science, 2017, Part F135186
Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy
Source
35th International Cosmic Ray Conference — ICRC2017, Bexco, Busan, Korea
Version
VoR (Version of Record)
Published in
Proceedings of Science
Publisher
SISSA, the International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste