First Search for Point Sources of High Energy Cosmic Neutrinos with the ANTARES Neutrino Telescope

TL;DR

This paper reports on the ANTARES neutrino telescope's search for high-energy cosmic neutrino sources, achieving improved sensitivity but finding no evidence of such sources in 2007-2008 data.

Contribution

First search for cosmic high-energy neutrino sources using ANTARES with enhanced angular resolution and sensitivity.

Findings

No cosmic neutrino sources detected.

Achieved median angular resolution of 0.5 degrees.

Improved flux sensitivity over previous experiments.

Abstract

Results are presented of a search for cosmic sources of high energy neutrinos with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. The data were collected during 2007 and 2008 using detector configurations containing between 5 and 12 detection lines. The integrated live time of the analyzed data is 304 days. Muon tracks are reconstructed using a likelihood-based algorithm. Studies of the detector timing indicate a median angular resolution of 0.5 +/- 0.1 degrees. The neutrino flux sensitivity is 7.5 x 10-8 ~ (E/GeV)^-2 GeV^-1 s^-1 cm^-2 for the part of the sky that is always visible (declination < -48 degrees), which is better than limits obtained by previous experiments. No cosmic neutrino sources have been observed.