All-sky Search for Transient Astrophysical Neutrino Emission with 10 Years of IceCube Cascade Events

Journal article

Neutrino flares in the sky are searched for in data collected by IceCube between 2011 and 2021 May. This data set contains cascade-like events originating from charged-current electron neutrino and tau neutrino interactions and all-flavor neutral-current interactions. IceCube’s previous all-sky searches for neutrino flares used data sets consisting of track-like events originating from charged-current muon neutrino interactions. The cascade data set is statistically independent of the track data sets, and while inferior in angular resolution, the low-background nature makes it competitive and complementary to previous searches. No statistically significant flare of neutrino emission was observed in an all-sky scan. Upper limits are calculated on neutrino flares of varying duration from 1 hr to 100 days. Furthermore, constraints on the contribution of these flares to the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux are presented, showing that multiple unresolved transient sources may contribute to the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux.

Authors: Abbasi, R; Ackermann, M; Adams, J; Agarwalla, SK; Aguilar, JA

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Journal: The Astrophysical Journal
• Volume: 967
• Issue: 1
• Article number: 48
• Publication date: 2024-05-16
• Acceptance date: 2024-03-22
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad3730
• EISSN: 1538-4357
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• Language: English
• Keywords: High energy astrophysics; Transient sources; Neutrino astronomy