Improvements in the Reconstruction of IceCube Realtime Alerts
Giacomo Sommani, Tianlu Yuan (for the IceCube Collaboration)

TL;DR
This paper presents recent improvements in the IceCube neutrino alert reconstruction system, significantly enhancing directional accuracy and systematically addressing errors, thereby advancing real-time astrophysical neutrino detection and analysis.
Contribution
The paper introduces new reconstruction algorithms and systematic error assessments that improve the precision of IceCube's real-time neutrino alerts.
Findings
Factor of 5 reduction in 50% contour area for directional localization
Enhanced systematic error analysis for ice model and detector geometry
Improvements applied to both real-time and historical alerts
Abstract
In 2016, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory launched its realtime program. When a neutrino candidate of likely astrophysical origin is detected, a public alert is issued, typically within one minute. These alerts allow the astrophysical community to follow up on the region of the sky where the neutrino likely originated. Initially, the system issued around six track-signature alerts per year, with a highlight being IceCube-170922A, which was later associated with the flaring blazar TXS 0506+056. Since 2019, IceCube has expanded the selection criteria for neutrino candidates, increasing the track alert rate to around 30 per year with additional alerts for cascade signatures of probable astrophysical origin implemented in 2020. This work describes several improvements in the reconstruction of track alerts, which were introduced into the realtime stream in 2024, and details the two…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena · Neutrino Physics Research · Radioactive Decay and Measurement Techniques
