Search for neutrinos in super-kamiokande associated with the GW170817 neutron-star merger

Journal article

We report the results of a neutrino search in Super-Kamiokande (SK) for coincident signals with the first detected gravitational wave (GW) produced by a binary neutron-star merger, GW170817, which was followed by a short gamma-ray burst, GRB170817A, and a kilonova/macronova. We searched for coincident neutrino events in the range from 3.5 MeV to ∼100 PeV, in a time window ±500 s around the gravitational wave detection time, as well as during a 14-day period after the detection. No significant neutrino signal was observed for either time window. We calculated 90% confidence level upper limits on the neutrino fluence for GW170817. From the upward-going-muon events in the energy region above 1.6 GeV, the neutrino fluence limit is () cm -2 for muon neutrinos (muon antineutrinos), with an error range of ±5around the zenith angle of NGC4993, and the energy spectrum is under the assumption of an index of-2. The fluence limit for neutrino energies less than 100 MeV, for which the emission mechanism would be different than for higher-energy neutrinos, is also calculated. It is 6.6 × 10 7 cm -2 for anti-electron neutrinos under the assumption of a Fermi-Dirac spectrum with average energy of 20 MeV.

Authors: Abe, K; Bronner, C; Hayato, Y; Ikeda, M; Iyogi, K

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Journal: Astrophysical Journal Letters
• Volume: 857
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-6
• Publication date: 2018-04-09
• Acceptance date: 2018-03-29
• DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aabaca
• EISSN: 2041-8213
• ISSN: 2041-8205
• Keywords: neutrinos; Journal Article; gravitational waves; astroparticle physics