Probing neutrino emission at GeV energies from compact binary mergers with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

TL;DR

This study searches for GeV neutrinos from compact binary mergers using IceCube data, employing a novel low-energy threshold method and statistical analysis, but finds no significant neutrino signals or population evidence.

Contribution

Introduces an innovative approach to lower the energy threshold to 0.5 GeV in IceCube and applies a statistical combination to search for neutrino emissions from mergers.

Findings

No significant neutrino excess detected from mergers.

No evidence of a population of GeV neutrino emitters.

The method sets new constraints on neutrino emission models.

Abstract

The advent of multi-messenger astronomy has allowed for new types of source searches by neutrino detectors. We present the results of the search for 0.5-100 GeV astrophysical neutrinos detected with IceCube and emitted from compact binary mergers detected by the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA interferometers from their first run of observation (O1) to the end of the first part of the fourth (O4a). An innovative approach is used to lower the energy threshold to 0.5 GeV and to search for an excess of GeV neutrinos in time coincidence with astrophysical transient events. Furthermore, we use a statistical combination of all observations, a binomial test, to search for a subpopulation of neutrino emitters. No significant excess was found from the studied mergers, with a best post-trial $p$-value of $40\%$, and there is currently no hint of a population of GeV neutrino emitters found in the IceCube data (post-trial $p$-value = $81\%$).