Murchison Widefield Array Limits on Radio Emission from ANTARES Neutrino Events
Abstract
We present a search, using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), for electromagnetic counterparts to two candidate high energy neutrino events detected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope in 2013 November and 2014 March. These events were selected by ANTARES because they are consistent, within 0.4 degrees, with the locations of galaxies within 20 Mpc of Earth. Using MWA archival data at frequencies between 118 and 182 MHz, taken ~20 days prior to, at the same time as, and up to a year after the neutrino triggers, we look for transient or strongly variable radio sources consistent with the neutrino positions. No such counterparts are detected, and we set a 5 sigma upper limit for low-frequency radio emission of ~1E37 erg/s for progenitors at 20 Mpc. If the neutrino sources are instead not in nearby galaxies, but originate in binary neutron star coalescences, our limits place the progenitors at z > 0.2. While it is possible, due to the high background from atmospheric neutrinos, that neither event is astrophysical, the MWA observations are nevertheless among the first to follow up neutrino candidates in the radio, and illustrate the promise of wide-field instruments like MWA to detect electromagnetic counterparts to such events.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1603.02271,
title = {Murchison Widefield Array Limits on Radio Emission from ANTARES Neutrino Events},
author = {S. Croft and D. L. Kaplan and S. J. Tingay and T. Murphy and M. E. Bell and A. Rowlinson and S. Adrian-Martinez and M. Ageron and A. Albert and M. Andre and G. Anton and M. Ardid and J. -J. Aubert and T. Avgitas and B. Baret and J. Barrios-Marti and S. Basa and V. Bertin and S. Biagi and R. Bormuth and M. C. Bouwhuis and R. Bruijn and J. Brunner and J. Busto and A. Capone and L. Caramete and J. Carr and T. Chiarusi and M. Circella and A. Coleiro and R. Coniglione and H. Costantini and P. Coyle and A. Creusot and I. Dekeyser and A. Deschamps and G. De Bonis and C. Distefano and C. Donzaud and D. Dornic and D. Drouhin and T. Eberl and I. El Bojaddaini and D. Elsasser and A. Enzenhofer and K. Fehn and I. Felis and P. Fermani and L. A. Fusco and S. Galata and P. Gay and S. Geisselsoder and K. Geyer and V. Giordano and A. Gleixner and H. Glotin and R. Gracia-Ruiz and K. Graf and S. Hallmann and H. van Haren and A. J. Heijboer and Y. Hello and J. J. Hernandez-Rey and J. Hossl and J. Hofestadt and C. Hugon and C. W James and M. de Jong and M. Kadler and O. Kalekin and U. Katz and D. Kiessling and P. Kooijman and A. Kouchner and M. Kreter and I. Kreykenbohm and V. Kulikovskiy and C. Lachaud and R. Lahmann and D. Lefevre and E. Leonora and S. Loucatos and M. Marcelin and A. Margiotta and A. Marinelli and J. A. Martinez-Mora and A. Mathieu and T. Michael and P. Migliozzi and A. Moussa and C. Mueller and E. Nezri and G. E. Pavalas and C. Pellegrino and C. Perrina and P. Piattelli and V. Popa and T. Pradier and C. Racca and G. Riccobene and K. Roensch and M. Saldana and D. F. E. Samtleben and A. Sanchez-Losa and M. Sanguineti and P. Sapienza and J. Schmid and J. Schnabel and F. Schussler and T. Seitz and C. Sieger and M. Spurio and J. J. M. Steijger and T. Stolarczyk and M. Taiuti and C. Tamburini and A. Trovato and M. Tselengidou and D. Turpin and C. Tonnis and B. Vallage and C. Vallee and V. Van Elewyck and E. Visser and D. Vivolo and S. Wagner and J. Wilms and J. D. Zornoza and J. Zuniga and A. Klotz and M. Boer and A. Le Van Suu and C. Akerlof and W. Zheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.02271},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
7 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL