학술논문
Search for steady point-like sources in the astrophysical muon neutrino flux with 8 years of IceCube data
Document Type
article
Author
IceCube Collaboration; M. G. Aartsen; M. Ackermann; J. Adams; J. A. Aguilar; M. Ahlers; M. Ahrens; D. Altmann; K. Andeen; T. Anderson; I. Ansseau; G. Anton; C. Argüelles; J. Auffenberg; S. Axani; P. Backes; H. Bagherpour; X. Bai; A. Barbano; J. P. Barron; S. W. Barwick; V. Baum; R. Bay; J. J. Beatty; J. Becker Tjus; K.-H. Becker; S. BenZvi; D. Berley; E. Bernardini; D. Z. Besson; G. Binder; D. Bindig; E. Blaufuss; S. Blot; C. Bohm; M. Börner; F. Bos; S. Böser; O. Botner; E. Bourbeau; J. Bourbeau; F. Bradascio; J. Braun; H.-P. Bretz; S. Bron; J. Brostean-Kaiser; A. Burgman; R. S. Busse; T. Carver; C. Chen; E. Cheung; D. Chirkin; K. Clark; L. Classen; G. H. Collin; J. M. Conrad; P. Coppin; P. Correa; D. F. Cowen; R. Cross; P. Dave; M. Day; J. P. A. M. de André; C. De Clercq; J. J. DeLaunay; H. Dembinski; K. Deoskar; S. De Ridder; P. Desiati; K. D. de Vries; G. de Wasseige; M. de With; T. DeYoung; J. C. Díaz-Vélez; H. Dujmovic; M. Dunkman; E. Dvorak; B. Eberhardt; T. Ehrhardt; B. Eichmann; P. Eller; P. A. Evenson; S. Fahey; A. R. Fazely; J. Felde; K. Filimonov; C. Finley; A. Franckowiak; E. Friedman; A. Fritz; T. K. Gaisser; J. Gallagher; E. Ganster; S. Garrappa; L. Gerhardt; K. Ghorbani; W. Giang; T. Glauch; T. Glüsenkamp; A. Goldschmidt; J. G. Gonzalez; D. Grant; Z. Griffith; C. Haack; A. Hallgren; L. Halve; F. Halzen; K. Hanson; D. Hebecker; D. Heereman; K. Helbing; R. Hellauer; S. Hickford; J. Hignight; G. C. Hill; K. D. Hoffman; R. Hoffmann; T. Hoinka; B. Hokanson-Fasig; K. Hoshina; F. Huang; M. Huber; K. Hultqvist; M. Hünnefeld; R. Hussain; S. In; N. Iovine; A. Ishihara; E. Jacobi; G. S. Japaridze; M. Jeong; K. Jero; B. J. P. Jones; P. Kalaczynski; W. Kang; A. Kappes; D. Kappesser; T. Karg; A. Karle; U. Katz; M. Kauer; A. Keivani; J. L. Kelley; A. Kheirandish; J. Kim; T. Kintscher; J. Kiryluk; T. Kittler; S. R. Klein; R. Koirala; H. Kolanoski; L. Köpke; C. Kopper; S. Kopper; D. J. Koskinen; M. Kowalski; K. Krings; M. Kroll; G. Krückl; S. Kunwar; N. Kurahashi; A. Kyriacou; M. Labare; J. L. Lanfranchi; M. J. Larson; F. Lauber; K. Leonard; M. Leuermann; Q. R. Liu; E. Lohfink; C. J. Lozano Mariscal; L. Lu; J. Lünemann; W. Luszczak; J. Madsen; G. Maggi; K. B. M. Mahn; Y. Makino; S. Mancina; I. C. Mariş; R. Maruyama; K. Mase; R. Maunu; K. Meagher; M. Medici; M. Meier; T. Menne; G. Merino; T. Meures; S. Miarecki; J. Micallef; G. Momenté; T. Montaruli; R. W. Moore; M. Moulai; R. Nagai; R. Nahnhauer; P. Nakarmi; U. Naumann; G. Neer; H. Niederhausen; S. C. Nowicki; D. R. Nygren; A. Obertacke Pollmann; A. Olivas; A. O’Murchadha; E. O’Sullivan; T. Palczewski; H. Pandya; D. V. Pankova; P. Peiffer; C. Pérez de los Heros; D. Pieloth; E. Pinat; A. Pizzuto; M. Plum; P. B. Price; G. T. Przybylski; C. Raab; M. Rameez; L. Rauch; K. Rawlins; I. C. Rea; R. Reimann; B. Relethford; G. Renzi; E. Resconi; W. Rhode; M. Richman; S. Robertson; M. Rongen; C. Rott; T. Ruhe; D. Ryckbosch; D. Rysewyk; I. Safa; S. E. Sanchez Herrera; A. Sandrock; J. Sandroos; M. Santander; S. Sarkar; K. Satalecka; M. Schaufel; P. Schlunder; T. Schmidt; A. Schneider; J. Schneider; S. Schöneberg; L. Schumacher; S. Sclafani; D. Seckel; S. Seunarine; J. Soedingrekso; D. Soldin; M. Song; G. M. Spiczak; C. Spiering; J. Stachurska; M. Stamatikos; T. Stanev; A. Stasik; R. Stein; J. Stettner; A. Steuer; T. Stezelberger; R. G. Stokstad; A. Stößl; N. L. Strotjohann; T. Stuttard; G. W. Sullivan; M. Sutherland; I. Taboada; F. Tenholt; S. Ter-Antonyan; A. Terliuk; S. Tilav; M. N. Tobin; C. Tönnis; S. Toscano; D. Tosi; M. Tselengidou; C. F. Tung; A. Turcati; R. Turcotte; C. F. Turley; B. Ty; E. Unger; M. A. Unland Elorrieta; M. Usner; J. Vandenbroucke; W. Van Driessche; D. van Eijk; N. van Eijndhoven; S. Vanheule; J. van Santen; M. Vraeghe; C. Walck; A. Wallace; M. Wallraff; F. D. Wandler; N. Wandkowsky; T. B. Watson; C. Weaver; M. J. Weiss; C. Wendt; J. Werthebach; S. Westerhoff; B. J. Whelan; N. Whitehorn; K. Wiebe; C. H. Wiebusch; L. Wille; D. R. Williams; L. Wills; M. Wolf; J. Wood; T. R. Wood; E. Woolsey; K. Woschnagg; G. Wrede; D. L. Xu; X. W. Xu; Y. Xu; J. P. Yanez; G. Yodh; S. Yoshida; T. Yuan
Source
European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields, Vol 79, Iss 3, Pp 1-19 (2019)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
1434-6044
1434-6052
1434-6052
Abstract
Abstract The IceCube Collaboration has observed a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux and recently found evidence for neutrino emission from the blazar TXS 0506$$+$$ + 056. These results open a new window into the high-energy universe. However, the source or sources of most of the observed flux of astrophysical neutrinos remains uncertain. Here, a search for steady point-like neutrino sources is performed using an unbinned likelihood analysis. The method searches for a spatial accumulation of muon-neutrino events using the very high-statistics sample of about 497,000 neutrinos recorded by IceCube between 2009 and 2017. The median angular resolution is $$\sim 1^\circ $$ ∼1∘ at 1 TeV and improves to $$\sim 0.3^\circ $$ ∼0.3∘ for neutrinos with an energy of 1 PeV. Compared to previous analyses, this search is optimized for point-like neutrino emission with the same flux-characteristics as the observed astrophysical muon-neutrino flux and introduces an improved event-reconstruction and parametrization of the background. The result is an improvement in sensitivity to the muon-neutrino flux compared to the previous analysis of $$\sim 35\%$$ ∼35% assuming an $$E^{-2}$$ E-2 spectrum. The sensitivity on the muon-neutrino flux is at a level of $$E^2 \mathrm {d} N /\mathrm {d} E = 3\cdot 10^{-13}\,\mathrm {TeV}\,\mathrm {cm}^{-2}\,\mathrm {s}^{-1}$$ E2dN/dE=3·10-13TeVcm-2s-1 . No new evidence for neutrino sources is found in a full sky scan and in an a priori candidate source list that is motivated by gamma-ray observations. Furthermore, no significant excesses above background are found from populations of sub-threshold sources. The implications of the non-observation for potential source classes are discussed.