Between 2011 March and 2014 August Swift responded to 20 triggers from the IceCube neutrino observatory, observing the IceCube 50% confidence error circle in X-rays, typically within 5 hours of the trigger. No confirmed counterpart has been detected. We describe the Swift follow up strategy and data analysis and present the results of the campaign. We discuss the challenges of distinguishing the X-ray counterpart to a neutrino trigger from serendipitous uncatalogued X-ray sources in the error circle, and consider the implications of our results for future strategies for multi-messenger astronomy, with particular reference to the follow up of gravitational wave triggers from the advanced-era detectors.
@article{arxiv.1501.04435,
title = {Swift follow-up of IceCube triggers, and implications for the Advanced-LIGO era},
author = {P. A. Evans and J. P. Osborne and J. A. Kennea and M. Smith and D. M. Palmer and N. Gehrels and J. M. Gelbord and A. Homeier and M. Voge and N. L. Strotjohann and D. F. Cowen and S. Boeser and M. Kowalski and A. Stasik},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.04435},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 18 pages, including 8 figures and 4 tables; two of which are landscape-oriented