IceCube-190104A

The IceCube Collaboration (http://icecube.wisc.edu/) reports:

On January 4, 2019, IceCube detected a track-like, very-high-energy event with a high probability of being of astrophysical origin. The event was identified by the High Energy Starting Event (HESE) track selection. The IceCube detector was in a normal operating state. HESE tracks have a neutrino interaction vertex inside the detector and produce a muon that only partially traverses the detector volume, and have a high light level (a proxy for energy). An inspection of the event does not reveal any feature to rule out this event as an astrophysical candidate. However, this event has a light level that is right above the analysis threshold so there is a non-negligible probability that this event is an atmospheric background.

After the initial automated alert (https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/notices_amon/68269692_131999.amon), more 
sophisticated reconstruction algorithms have been applied offline, with the direction refined to:

Date: 2019/01/04 
Time: 08:34:38.23 UT
RA: 357.98 [-2.1,+2.3] (deg  90% PSF containment) J2000
Dec: -26.65 [-2.5,+2.2] (deg 90% PSF containment) J2000

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

S. Ciprini (INFN Tor Vergata; ASI Space Science Data Center, Rome) S. Buson (Univ. of Wuerzburg), S. Garrappa (DESY-Zeuthen) on behalf of the Fermi-LAT collaboration:

We report an analysis of observations of the vicinity of the very high-energy IC190104A neutrino event (GCN 23605
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 ) with all-sky survey data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT), on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The IceCube event was detected on 2019-01-04 08:34:38.23 UTC with J2000 position RA = 357.98 (-2.1,+2.3) deg, Decl. = -26.65 (-2.5,+2.2) deg 90% PSF containment. There are no cataloged >100 MeV gamma-ray sources consistent with the IC180908A localization. The closest known gamma-ray object is 3FGL J2358.3-2853, 2.7 deg from the neutrino best-fit position, and is associated with the blazar PMN J2358 2853 (Ackermann et al. 2015 ApJS 810, 14).

We searched for the existence of intermediate (months to years) timescale emission from a new gamma-ray transient source. Preliminary analysis indicates no significant (>5sigma) new excess emission (>100 MeV) within the IC190104A 90% confidence localization. Assuming a power-law spectrum (photon index = 2.2 fixed) for a point source at the IceCube best-fit position, the >100 MeV flux upper limits (95% confidence) are < 2.5e-10 ph cm^-2 s^-1 for ~10.5-years (2008-08-04 / 2019-01-03 UTC) integration time, < 1.1e-9 ph cm^-2 s^-1 for one year (2018-01-03 / 2019-01-03 UTC) integration time, and < 2.9e-8 ph cm^-2 s^-1 for one month (2018-12-04 / 2019-01-03 UTC) integration time before the IceCube IC190104A neutrino detection.

Since Fermi normally operates in an all-sky scanning mode, regular monitoring of this source will continue. For this source the Fermi-LAT contact persons are S. Ciprini (stefano.ciprini at ssdc.asi.it), S. Buson (sara.buson at astro.uni-wuerzburg.de) and S. Garrappa (simone.garrappa at desy.de).

The Fermi LAT is a pair conversion telescope designed to cover the energy band from 20 MeV to greater than 300 GeV. It is the product of an international collaboration between NASA and DOE in the U.S. and many scientific institutions across France, Italy, Japan and Sweden.

O.Gress, V. Lipunov, V.Senik, E. Gorbovskoy, V.Kornilov, N.Tiurina, 
V.Vladimirov, P.Balanutsa, A.Kuznetsov, D. Vlasenko, D.Kobtsev (Lomonosov Moscow State University, SAI),

D. Buckley (South African Astronomical Observatory),

R. Podesta, C.Lopez, F. Podesta, C.Francile (Observatorio Astronomico  Felix Aguilar),

H. Levato
(Instituto de Ciencias Astronomicas, de la Tierra y del Espacio of San Juan National University, Argentina)

R. Rebolo, M. Serra, N. Lodieu, G. Israelian, L. Suarez-Andres
(The Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias),

A. Tlatov, D. Dormidontov (Kislovodsk Solar Station of the Pulkovo Observatory),

N.M. Budnev, S. Yazev, O. Chuvalaev (Irkutsk State University, API)

A. Gabovich, V.Yurkov, D.Kobtsev, Yu. Sergienko (Blagoveschensk 
Educational State University)


MASTER-SAAO robotic telescope (Global MASTER-Net: http://observ.pereplet.ru, Lipunov et al., 2010, Advances in Astronomy, vol. 2010, 30L)
located in South African Astronomical Observatory,
automatically started inspect of the ICECUBE  Alert190104.36 error-box 
(23 57 19 dec=-25 21 57, r=1.23  taken from the IceCube-MASTER socket )
36615 sec after notice time and 36655sec after trigger time at 2019-01-04 18:45:33 UT.

The 5-sigma upper limit on our first (180s exposure)  set is 18.4 mag

IceCube publishied error-box differs from socket one (Kopper et al. GCN 23605
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 )

MASTER cover map will be available here
http://master.sai.msu.ru/static/IC/MASTERIC190104.36.png

There are the following sources in IceCube error box:
1) 4 blazars from Roma BZCAT
5BZBJ2350-2436   357.59720 -24.60083 	0.193	16.2       , dist= 2.085 deg
5BZQJ2352-2825   358.22070 -28.43111 	1.662	19.1       , dist= 1.797 deg
5BZQJ2353-2743   358.29776 -27.72378 	0.889	17.9       , dist= 1.120 deg
5BZQJ2357-2451   359.34937 -24.85089 	1.614	19.3       , dist= 2.261 deg

2) 3 known supernovae :  LSQ12gdj, SN1993ah, PTF11klo
3) 62 xray sources
4) 75 radio-sources
5) 3297 galaxies inside 2.28 deg radii
6) 2 variable sources from AAVSO database
VZ Scl 	        23 50 09.25 -26 22 52.6 (type :  NL/VY+E)
ATLAS18tyo 	23 52 08.06 -27 48 07.7 (type :  UG)


MASTER Global Robotic Net continues inspection.

====================================================================
The error-box center's galactic latitude b = -78 deg., longitude l = 40 deg.
The observations started at zenit distance = 41 deg.
The moon ( 2 % bright part)was below the horizon (
The altitude of the Moon was -22 deg ( 2 % bright part)
  Observations started at twilight, the sun  altitude  was -11.4 deg.

Alexis Coleiro (APC) and Damien Dornic (CPPM)  report on behalf of the ANTARES Collaboration:

Using data from the ANTARES detector, we have performed a follow-up analysis of the recently reported single high-energy starting event (HESE) neutrino IceCube-190104A (GCN 23605
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 ). The reconstructed origin was 39.1 degrees below the horizon for ANTARES. No up-going muon neutrino candidate events were recorded within three degrees of the IceCube event coordinates during a +/- 1h time-window centered on the IceCube event time. A search over an extended time window of +/- 1 day has also yielded no detection (65% visibility probability). 

This yields a preliminary 90% confidence level upper limit on the muon-neutrino fluence from a point source of 16 GeV.cm^-2 over the energy range 3.2 TeV - 3.5 PeV (the range corresponding to 5-95% of the detectable flux) for an E^-2 power-law spectrum, and 30 GeV.cm^-2 (620 GeV - 315 TeV) for an E^-2.5 spectrum. 

ANTARES is the largest neutrino detector installed in the Mediterranean Sea, and is primarily sensitive to astrophysical neutrinos in the TeV-PeV energy range. At 10 TeV, the median angular resolution for muon neutrinos is about 0.5 degrees. In the range 1-100 TeV, ANTARES has a competitive sensitivity to this position in the sky.

The IceCube Collaboration (http://icecube.wisc.edu/) reports:


IceCube has performed a search for additional track-like muon neutrino events arriving from the direction

of IceCube-190104A (https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn3/23605.gcn3
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 ) in a time range of 2 days centered on the alert

event time (2019-01-03 08:34:38 UTC to 2019-01-05 08:34:38 UTC) during which IceCube was collecting good quality data. Excluding

the event that prompted the alert, 3 additional track-like events are found in spatial coincidence with the

90% PSF containment of IceCube-190104A. We find that these 3 additional events are well described by atmospheric

background expectations, with a p-value of 1.0. Accordingly, these data would represent a time-integrated

muon-neutrino flux upper limit assuming an E^-2 spectrum (E^2 dN/dE) at the 90% CL of 3.98 x 10^-4 TeV cm^-2

for this observation period.


A subsequent search was performed to include the previous month of data (2018-12-04 08:34:38 UTC to 2019-01-05 08:34:38 UTC).

In this case, we also report a p-value of 1.0, consistent with no significant excess of track events, and a corresponding

time-integrated muon-neutrino flux upper limit assuming an E^-2 spectrum (E^2 dN/dE) at the 90% CL of 1.29 x 10^-3 TeV cm^-2.


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.

A. Goldstein (USRA) and R. Hamburg (UAH)

report on behalf of the Fermi GBM team:


���We have searched the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor data for a

gamma-ray counterpart to IceCube-190104A (GCN 23605
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 ). The

closest onboard trigger occurred approximately 16 hours after the

neutrino event time and was identified as a terrestrial gamma-ray

flash unassociated with the neutrino. The ground-based untargeted

search of GBM data did not find any significant candidates within

+/- 1 hour of the event time. The targeted search ([1],[2]) was also

run +/- 30 s around the event time, and no significant candidates

were found. Upper limits on persistent emission using the Earth

Occultation technique [3] will be forthcoming.���


[1] L. Blackburn et al. 2015, ApJS 217, 8

[2] A. Goldstein et al. arXiv:1612.02395
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[3] Wilson-Hodge et al. 2012, ApJS, 201, 33

A. Keivani (Columbia U.), P.A. Evans (U. Leicester), D.B. Fox (PSU), J.A.
Kennea (PSU),  D.F. Cowen (PSU), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), F.E. Marshall
(GSFC), Marcos Santander (U. Alabama), Miguel Mostafa (PSU), and Hugo Ayala
(PSU) report:


Swift has observed the field of the IceCube HESE neutrino candidate
IceCube-190104A (revision 1, https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn3/23605.gcn3
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 ),
utilizing its on-board 37-point tiling pattern to cover a region centered
on R.A., Dec. (J2000) = (357.98d, -26.65d), with a radius of approximately
1.1 degrees. Swift first started observing the initial location of the
IceCube-190104A, ~3 hours after the neutrino arrival time: R.A., Dec.
(J2000) = (359.3299d, -25.3659d) with an angular uncertainty of 0.42d, 50%
containment (revision 0,
https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/notices_amon/68269692_131999.amon), using a
19-point tiling pattern. Upon receiving the GCN Circular update from the
IceCube collaboration on the event refined direction and localization,
Swift slewed to observe the new position with a 37-point tiling.


Swift-XRT collected ~400 s per field of PC mode data per tile. The new
observations were taken between 14:47:27 UT on 2019 January 4 and 10:22:20
UT on 2019 January 5, and covered 3.8 square degrees.

There is a patch of diffuse X-ray emission around R.A. 23h 51m 39.27s, Dec.
-26d 05��� 05.2��� which gives rise to multiple spurious point-source
detections; upon review, however, there is no evidence of point-like X-ray
sources in this region. SIMBAD reports the galaxy [CKS2006] 11 at this
position. The diffuse X-rays likely come from the galaxy cluster Abell 2667
(located at R.A. 23h 51m 39.37s, Dec. -26d 05��� 02.7���).


A single point-like X-ray source is detected at R.A. 23h 50m 29.68s, Dec.
-26d 20��� 45.2��� with an uncertainty of 5.4��� (90% conf. radius). This matches
the catalogued X-ray source XMMSL2 J235029.0-262037 with its current flux
at 2.4-sigma below the catalogued level from XMM-Newton Slew Survey Source
Catalogue. SIMBAD lists a QSO ([VV2006] J235029.6-262046) at 2.7" from the
XRT position for this source; the object is a broad-line quasar at redshift
z=0.217 with M_i~-23 mag and L_X~10^44 erg s^-1 (Jones et al. 2009, MNRAS,
399 683). Its mean XRT count rate from our observations is 1.3(+0.6,
-0.5)e-2 ct s^-1.

The 3-sigma upper limit on the count rate in the rest of the field is 0.02
ct s^-1, which corresponds to a 0.3-10 keV flux of 8.0e-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1
for a typical AGN spectrum (NH=3e20 cm^-2, Gamma=1.7).

A. Anumarlapudi (IITB), E. Aarthy (PRL), V. Bhalerao (IITB), D. Bhattacharya (IUCAA), A. R. Rao (TIFR) and S. Vadawale (PRL) report on behalf of the AstroSat CZTI collaboration:

We have carried out a search for hard X-ray candidates in Astrosat CZTI data in a 1000 sec window around the high-energy neutrino event IceCube-190104A (IceCube Collaboration, GCN #23605
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 ) on 2019-01-04 T08:34:38.23. CZTI is a coded aperture mask instrument that has considerable effective area for about 29% of the entire sky, but is also sensitive to brighter transients from the entire sky. At this instance, AstroSat's nominal pointing is (RA=196.02, DEC=-10.34), approximately 137 deg away from the transient. The source direction was not occulted by earth in Astrosat's frame. 

CZTI data were de-trended to remove orbit-wise background variation. We then searched the data from the four independent, identical quadrants to look for coincident spikes in the count rates. Searches were undertaken by binning the data in 0.1s, 1s, and 10s respectively. Statistical fluctuations in count rates were estimated by using data from 10 neighbouring orbits. We selected confidence levels such that the probability of a false trigger in this 1000s window is 10^-4. We do not find any evidence for any Gamma-ray transient in this window, in the CZTI energy range of 20-200 keV.

We convert our count rates into flux by assuming that the source spectrum is a power law with photon index alpha = -2.0. We use a detailed mass model of the satellite to calculate the instrument response in the direction of the event. We get the following upper limits for source flux in the 20-200 keV band: 

0.1 s: flux limit= 2e-6 ergs/cm^2/s 
1.0 s: flux limit= 6e-6 ergs/cm^2/s
10.0 s: flux limit= 9e-6 ergs/cm^2/s

If, instead, we assume a power law with photon index alpha = -1.0, the upper limits are:

0.1 s: flux limit= 3e-6 ergs/cm^2/s 
1.0 s: flux limit= 8.5e-6 ergs/cm^2/s
10.0 s: flux limit= 1.3e-5 ergs/cm^2/s


CZTI is built by a TIFR-led consortium of institutes across India, including VSSC, ISAC, IUCAA, SAC and PRL. The Indian Space Research Organisation funded, managed and facilitated the project.

V. Savchenko, C. Ferrigno, E. Bozzo, T. Courvoisier (ISDC/UniGE,
Switzerland)
E. Kuulkers (ESTEC/ESA, The Netherlands)
C. Sanchez (ESAC/ESA, Spain)
S. Mereghetti (INAF IASF-Milano, Italy)
J. Rodi, A. Bazzano, L. Natalucci, F. Panessa, P. Ubertini (IAPS-Roma,
Italy)
J. Chenevez, S. Brandt (DTU, Denmark)
R. Diehl, A. von Kienlin (MPE, Germany)
D. Gotz, Ph. Laurent, A. Goldwurm (DRF/Irfu/DAp Saclay/CEA, France)
A. Coleiro (APC, France)
L. Hanlon, A. Martin-Carrillo (UCD, Ireland)
J.-P. Roques, E. Jourdain, P. von Ballmoos (IRAP, France)
A. D. Garau, M. M. Hesse (CSIC-INTA, Spain)
A. Lutovinov, R. Sunyaev (IKI, Russia)
��

Using INTEGRAL we have performed a search for a prompt gamma-ray
counterpart of the cosmic neutrino candidate IceCube-190104A
(GCN 23605
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 ).
��
At the time of the event (2019-01-04 08:34:38 UTC, hereafter T0),
INTEGRAL was operating in nominal mode. The peak of the neutrino
localization probability was at an angle of 92 deg with respect to
the spacecraft pointing axis. This orientation implies strongly
suppressed response of IBIS and near-optimal response of SPI-ACS.
��
The background within +/-300 seconds around the event was very
stable.�� We do not detect any significant counterparts and estimate
a 3-sigma upper limit on the 75-2000 keV fluence of 2.1e-07 erg/cm^2
for a burst lasting less than 1 s with a characteristic short GRB
spectrum (an exponentially cut off power law with alpha=-0.5 and
Ep=600 keV) occurring at any time in the interval within 300 s
around T0.
��
For a typical long GRB spectrum (Band function with alpha=-1,
beta=-2.5, and Ep=300 keV), the derived peak flux upper limit is
~2.4e-07 (7.4e-07) erg/cm^2/s at 1 s (8 s) time scale in 75-2000
keV energy range.