In the past decade, a new class of bright transient radio sources with millisecond duration has been discovered. The origin of these so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) is still a mystery, despite the ...growing observational efforts made by various multiwavelength and multimessenger facilities. To date, many models have been proposed to explain FRBs, but neither the progenitors nor the radiative and the particle acceleration processes at work have been clearly identified. In this paper, we assess whether hadronic processes may occur in the vicinity of the FRB source. If they do, FRBs may contribute to the high-energy cosmic-ray and neutrino fluxes. A search for these hadronic signatures was carried out using the ANTARES neutrino telescope. The analysis consists in looking for high-energy neutrinos, in the TeV–PeV regime, that are spatially and temporally coincident with the detected FRBs. Most of the FRBs discovered in the period 2013–2017 were in the field of view of the ANTARES detector, which is sensitive mostly to events originating from the Southern hemisphere. From this period, 12 FRBs were selected and no coincident neutrino candidate was observed. Upper limits on the per-burst neutrino fluence were derived using a power-law spectrum, dN/dEν∝E−γν, for the incoming neutrino flux, assuming spectral indexes γ = 1.0, 2.0, 2.5. Finally, the neutrino energy was constrained by computing the total energy radiated in neutrinos, assuming different distances for the FRBs. Constraints on the neutrino fluence and on the energy released were derived from the associated null results
Test modules of the ANTARES underwater neutrino detector have already been immersed several times with autonomous data acquisition and the construction of a string with electro-optical transmission ...of analog signals to the shore is in its final phase. The next generation prototypes are already under construction. Data are digitised inside the optical modules by a fast analog memory ASIC developed within the collaboration, the Analog Ring Sampler. Data waveforms and/or time and charges are stored locally until a local (level 1) or global (level 2) trigger is formed. Data rate reduction, data transmission along strings and to the shore and trigger designs with configurable analogue coincidences are described. Calibrations of time and amplitude are outlined.
ABSTRACT
Addressing the origin of the astrophysical neutrino flux observed by IceCube is of paramount importance. Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are among the few astrophysical sources capable of achieving ...the required energy to contribute to such neutrino flux through pγ interactions. In this work, ANTARES data have been used to search for upward going muon neutrinos in spatial and temporal coincidence with 784 GRBs occurred from 2007 to 2017. For each GRB, the expected neutrino flux has been calculated in the framework of the internal shock model and the impact of the lack of knowledge on the majority of source redshifts and on other intrinsic parameters of the emission mechanism has been quantified. It is found that the model parameters that set the radial distance where shock collisions occur have the largest impact on neutrino flux expectations. In particular, the bulk Lorentz factor of the source ejecta and the minimum variability time-scale are found to contribute significantly to the GRB-neutrino flux uncertainty. For the selected sources, ANTARES data have been analysed by maximizing the discovery probability of the stacking sample through an extended maximum-likelihood strategy. Since no neutrino event passed the quality cuts set by the optimization procedure, 90 per cent confidence level upper limits (with their uncertainty) on the total expected diffuse neutrino flux have been derived, according to the model. The GRB contribution to the observed diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux around 100 TeV is constrained to be less than 10 per cent.
The flux of very high-energy neutrinos produced in our Galaxy by the interaction of accelerated cosmic rays with the interstellar medium is not yet determined. The characterization of this flux will ...shed light on Galactic accelerator features, gas distribution morphology and Galactic cosmic ray transport. The central Galactic plane can be the site of an enhanced neutrino production, thus leading to anisotropies in the extraterrestrial neutrino signal as measured by the IceCube Collaboration. The ANTARES neutrino telescope, located in the Mediterranean Sea, offers a favorable view of this part of the sky, thereby allowing for a contribution to the determination of this flux. The expected diffuse Galactic neutrino emission can be obtained, linking a model of generation and propagation of cosmic rays with the morphology of the gas distribution in the Milky Way. In this paper, the so-called “gamma model” introduced recently to explain the high-energy gamma-ray diffuse Galactic emission is assumed as reference. The neutrino flux predicted by the “gamma model” depends on the assumed primary cosmic ray spectrum cutoff. Considering a radially dependent diffusion coefficient, this proposed scenario is able to account for the local cosmic ray measurements, as well as for the Galactic gamma-ray observations. Nine years of ANTARES data are used in this work to search for a possible Galactic contribution according to this scenario. All flavor neutrino interactions are considered. No excess of events is observed, and an upper limit is set on the neutrino flux of 1.1 (1.2) times the prediction of the “gamma model,” assuming the primary cosmic ray spectrum cutoff at 5 (50) PeV. This limit excludes the diffuse Galactic neutrino emission as the major cause of the “spectral anomaly” between the two hemispheres measured by IceCube.
The ANTARES detector is at present the most sensitive neutrino telescope in the northern hemisphere. The highly significant cosmic neutrino excess observed by the Antarctic IceCube detector can be ...studied with ANTARES, exploiting its complementing field of view, exposure, and lower energy threshold. Searches for an all-flavor diffuse neutrino signal, covering nine years of ANTARES data taking, are presented in this Letter. Upward-going events are used to reduce the atmospheric muon background. This work includes for the first time in ANTARES both track-like (mainly and shower-like (mainly ) events in this kind of analysis. Track-like events allow for an increase of the effective volume of the detector thanks to the long path traveled by muons in rock and/or sea water. Shower-like events are well reconstructed only when the neutrino interaction vertex is close to, or inside, the instrumented volume. A mild excess of high-energy events over the expected background is observed in nine years of ANTARES data in both samples. The best fit for a single power-law cosmic neutrino spectrum, in terms of per-flavor flux at 100 TeV, is 10−18 GeV−1 cm−2 s−1 sr−1 with spectral index . The null cosmic flux assumption is rejected with a significance of 1.6 .
In this paper, a time-integrated search for point sources of cosmic neutrinos is presented using the data collected from 2007 to 2010 by the ANTARES neutrino telescope. No statistically significant ...signal has been found and upper limits on the neutrino flux have been obtained. Assuming an E super(-2) sub(v) spectrum, these flux limits are at 1-10x10 super(-8) GeV cm super(-2) s super(-1) for declinations ranging from -90degrees to 40degrees. Limits for specific models of RX J1713.7-3946 and Vela X, which include information on the source morphology and spectrum, are also given.
PDF
