IceCube-230707B

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

On 23-07-07 at 18:56:51.44 UT IceCube detected a track-like event with a moderate probability of being of astrophysical origin.

The event was selected by the ICECUBE_Astrotrack_Bronze alert stream. The average astrophysical neutrino purity for Bronze alerts is 30%. This alert has an estimated false alarm rate of 1.358 events per year due to atmospheric backgrounds.  The IceCube detector was in a normal operating state at the time of detection.  After the initial automated alert (https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/notices_amon_g_b/138125_29513102.amon), more sophisticated reconstruction algorithms have been applied offline, with the direction refined to:

Date: 23-07-07
Time:  18:56:51.44 UT
RA: 127.18 (+11.41 deg, -8.66 deg  90% PSF containment) J2000
Dec: 20.74 (+11.41 deg, -9.16 deg 90% PSF containment) J2000

The large directional uncertainty is due to the muon that triggered the event clipping a corner of the detector and therefore producing a short track. 

We encourage follow-up by ground and space-based instruments to help identify a possible astrophysical source for the candidate neutrino.

Given the size of the uncertainty region, there is a large number (>30) of Fermi 4FGL-DR3 or 3FHL catalog sources in the 90% uncertainty region. 

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

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-230707B (https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/34166
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 ) in a time range of 1000 seconds centered on the alert event time (2023-07-07 18:48:31.430 UTC to 2023-07-07 19:05:11.430 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-230707B. The IceCube sensitivity to neutrino point sources with an E^-2.5 spectrum (E^2 dN/dE at 1 TeV) within the locations spanned by the 90% spatial containment region of IceCube-230707B ranges from 1.3e-01 to 1.4e-01 GeV cm^-2 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 (2023-07-06 18:56:51.430 UTC to 2023-07-08 18:56:51.430 UTC). In this case, we report a p-value of 0.73, consistent with no significant excess of track events. The IceCube sensitivity to neutrino point sources with an E^-2.5 spectrum (E^2 dN/dE at 1 TeV) within the locations spanned by the 90% spatial containment region of IceCube-230707B ranges from 1.5e-01 to 1.7e-01 GeV cm^-2 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)

S. Garrappa (Weizmann Institute of Science), S. Buson (Univ. Wuerzburg), J. Sinapius (DESY) and C. Bartolini (INFN Bari) on behalf of the Fermi-LAT collaboration:
We report an analysis of observations of the vicinity of the IC230707B  high-energy neutrino event (GCN 34166
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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 2023-07-07 at 18:56:51.44 UT (T0) with J2000 position RA = 127.18 (+11.41, -8.66) deg, Decl. = 20.74 (+11.41, -9.16) deg (90% PSF containment).  Several cataloged gamma-ray (>100 MeV; The Fermi-LAT collaboration 2022, ApJS, 260, 53) sources are located within the 90% IC230707B  localization region. Based on a preliminary analysis of the LAT data over a month and day timescale prior T0, these objects are not significantly detected at gamma rays.
We searched for intermediate (days to years) timescale emission from a new gamma-ray source. Preliminary analysis indicates no significant (> 5 sigma) new excess emission (> 100 MeV) at the IC230707B best-fit position. Assuming a power-law spectrum (photon index = 2.0 fixed) for a point source at the IC230707B best-fit position, the >100 MeV flux upper limit (95% confidence) is < 1.1e-10 ph cm^-2 s^-1 for ~15-years (2008-08-04 to 2023-07-07 UTC), and < 5.5e-9 (< 1.3e-7) ph cm^-2 s^-1 for a 1-month (1-day) integration time before T0.

Since Fermi normally operates in an all-sky scanning mode, regular monitoring of this region will continue. For these observations the Fermi-LAT contact persons are S. Garrappa (simone.garrappa at weizmann.ac.il <http://eizmann.ac.il/>), J. Sinapius (jonas.sinapius at desy.de <http://desy.de/>) and S. Buson (sara.buson at uni-wuerzburg.de <http://uni-wuerzburg.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.