Realtime Follow-up of Astrophysical Transients with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

TL;DR

This paper describes the development and results of a real-time neutrino follow-up pipeline at IceCube, enabling rapid response to astrophysical transient events and contributing to multi-messenger astronomy.

Contribution

It introduces a low-latency analysis pipeline at IceCube for real-time follow-up of astrophysical transients, enhancing multi-messenger investigations.

Findings

Pipeline operational since 2016 with successful transient follow-ups

Constraints on populations of astrophysical neutrino transients

Enhanced multi-messenger observational capabilities

Abstract

Realtime analyses are necessary to identify the source of high energy neutrinos. As an observatory with a 4$\pi$ steradian field of view and near-100% duty cycle, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a unique facility for investigating transients. In 2016, IceCube established a pipeline that uses low-latency data to rapidly respond to astrophysical events that were of interest to the multi-messenger observational community. Here, we describe this pipeline and summarize the results from all of the analyses performed since 2016. We focus not only on those analyses which were performed in response to transients identified using other messengers such as photons and gravitational waves, but also on how this pipeline can be used to constrain populations of astrophysical neutrino transients by following up high-energy neutrino alerts.