Search for Transient Astrophysical Neutrino Emission with IceCube-DeepCore

TL;DR

This study used IceCube-DeepCore data from 2012-2013 to search for transient astrophysical neutrino sources in the sub-TeV energy range, but found no significant signals, setting limits on various models.

Contribution

First search for transient neutrino emission in the sub-TeV range using IceCube-DeepCore data with novel event selection methods.

Findings

No significant transient neutrino sources detected.

Set limits on neutrino emission models from soft jets in supernovae.

Established constraints on transient neutrino fluxes from 1 second to 10 days.

Abstract

We present the results of a search for astrophysical sources of brief transient neutrino emission using IceCube and DeepCore data acquired between May 15th 2012 and April 30th 2013. While the search methods employed in this analysis are similar to those used in previous IceCube point source searches, the data set being examined consists of a sample of predominantly sub-TeV muon neu- trinos from the Northern Sky (-5$^{\circ}$ < {\delta} < 90$^{\circ}$ ) obtained through a novel event selection method. This search represents a first attempt by IceCube to identify astrophysical neutrino sources in this relatively unexplored energy range. The reconstructed direction and time of arrival of neutrino events is used to search for any significant self-correlation in the dataset. The data revealed no significant source of transient neutrino emission. This result has been used to construct limits at timescales ranging from roughly 1$\,$s to 10 days for generic soft-spectra transients. We also present limits on a specific model of neutrino emission from soft jets in core-collapse supernovae.