GCN Circular 43788
Subject
IceCube-260217A: Upper limits from a search for additional neutrino events in IceCube
Event
Date
2026-02-20T22:37:41Z (2 days ago)
From
syan079@icecube.wisc.edu
Via
Web form
The IceCube Collaboration (http://icecube.wisc.edu/) reports:
IceCube has performed a search [1] for additional track-like muon neutrino events arriving from the direction of IceCube-260217A (https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/43768) in a time range of 1000 seconds centered on the alert event time (2026-02-17 05:47:04.510 UTC to 2026-02-17 06:03:44.510 UTC) during which IceCube was collecting good quality data. Excluding the event that prompted the alert, zero track-like events are found within the 90% containment region of IceCube-260217A. We report a p-value of 1.00 in this time window. IceCube’s sensitivity to neutrino point sources with an E^-2.5 spectrum, expressed as E^2 dN/dE evaluated at 1 TeV, is 1.4e-01 GeV cm^-2 within the 90% spatial containment region of IceCube-260217A in a 1000 second time window. 90% of events IceCube would detect from a source at this declination with an E^-2.5 spectrum have energies in the approximate energy range between 2e+02 GeV and 1e+05 GeV.
A subsequent search was performed including 2 days of data centered on the alert event time (2026-02-16 05:55:24.510 UTC to 2026-02-18 05:55:24.510 UTC). In this case, we report a p-value of 0.014, consistent with no significant excess of track events. IceCube’s sensitivity to neutrino point sources with an E^-2.5 spectrum, expressed as E^2 dN/dE evaluated at 1 TeV, is 1.6e-01 GeV cm^-2 within the 90% spatial containment region of IceCube-260217A in a 2 day
time window.
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic-kilometer neutrino detector operating at the geographic South Pole, Antarctica. The IceCube realtime alert point of contact can be reached at roc@icecube.wisc.edu.
[1] IceCube Collaboration, R. Abbasi et al., ApJ 910 4 (2021)