Expected discovery potential and sensitivity of the ANTARES neutrino telescope to neutrino point-like sources

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the ANTARES neutrino telescope's ability to detect point-like neutrino sources, emphasizing its high angular resolution and developed algorithms to distinguish signals from background noise.

Contribution

It presents the expected discovery potential and sensitivity of ANTARES to neutrino point sources, highlighting its capabilities and analysis methods.

Findings

High angular resolution improves source localization

Developed algorithms enhance detection sensitivity

Expected to identify astrophysical neutrino sources

Abstract

The ANTARES telescope is being built in the Mediterranean Sea. The detector consists of a 3D array of photomultipliers (PMTs) that detects the Cherenkov light induced by the muons produced in neutrino interactions. Other signatures can also be detected. Since the neutrino fluxes from point-like sources are expected to be small, it is of the utmost importance to take advantage of the ANTARES pointing accuracy (angular resolution better than 0.3 degrees for muon events above 10 TeV) to disentangle a possible signal from the unavoidable atmospheric neutrino background. In order to distinguish an excess of neutrino events from the background, several searching algorithms have been developed within the ANTARES collaboration. In this contribution, the discovery potential and sensitivity to point-like sources of the ANTARES neutrino telescope are presented.